

^^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



^^^^^^^^ :?o 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




ISTKW YORK: 

NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY AND PUBLICATION HOUSE. 

58 RKADK STRKKTr. 



NEW TEmf»ERAIMCi TALES. 



FIFE AND DRUM SERIES. 

ONLY lO CENTS EACH. 

THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY has commenced the publication of a 
series of cheap and thrilling Temperance Tales, and from the pens ot some " the b-tst 
writers on Temperance in the world, giving a greater amount of valuab'' .tere-ting 

matter than ever before, fj»r the small sum of 10 cents. 'J he ( bject is U ply a great 

amount of matter calculated to aid the alvanc ment of the cause of Temperaux^e for a very- 
small sum of money, i he following have already been published : 

No. 1. Fife asid l>riiiii. By Mary Dwinell Chellis i2mo, 79 pp. .lO 

" S. A Tra«-edy of tlie Sea. By Mrs. J. McNair Wright. 

i2rQo, 72 pp „l© 

'* S. T'Sie Qaialcer's Mule. By Ernest Gilmore. T2mo, 72 pp. .lO 

'* -4. l>ri!ik:iiig* of acju:, ai&d Oilier Storte«$. 12010, 72 pp. .lO 

*' 5. A ^Vomaai's W^ay. By Mrs. E. J. Richmond. i2mo, 72 pp. .14) 

^' 6. Tlie Old Tavern. By Mary Dwinell Chellis. i2mo, 72 pp. .lO 

** 7. A Jolly Xiiiie. By Mary Dwinell Chellis. i2mo, 77 pp... .lO 

** @. 'File Aiitol>iog'rapJiy of a Mottle. i2mo, 72 pp... .lO 

'* ©. Jaek^s Hor^eslioe. By Edward S. Ellis. i2mo, 95 pp.. .lO 

** 10. 15etty's Brig:lat Idea, and Otlier Stories. By 

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. i2mo, 90 pp 1© 

" 11. Tlae ff^ittle Red ^toeking^ Haat Hung^ at tlie 

Gate. By Faith Wynne. i2mo, 72 pp lO 

*' 13. How Sandy Came to His Fortune. i2mo, 8i pp. .lO 

'* 13. Tlie Two Bars. i2mo, 96 pp lO 

'* 141. A Iflore Excellent Way, and Otlier Ntories 

OF THE Crusade. By M. E. Winslow. i2mo, 118 pp lO 

'* 15. Zoological Convention. i2mo, 160 pp .lO 

*^ 1€. Tlie ^^orkingman's I^oaf. By Mary Dwinell Chellis. 

i2mo, 83PP IIO 

'^ 17. Rosa ILieigliton ; or, In His Strength. i2mo, 178 pp.. .lO 

'* 18. Come Home, Motlier. i2mo, 150 pp lO 

"19. Tlie ISroolc. i2mo, 91 pp, lO 

" 30. Tlie Tide Turning. i2mo, 129 pp.. .lO 

** 31. Over tlie ^Way. i2mo, 108 pp lO 

'^ 23. £^ilie Raymond's I^ife-'Work:. i2mo, loi pp lO 

''33. Tlie Old Bro^vn ^itclier. i2mo, 124 pp lO 

*' 341. Tom Blinn's Temperance Society, i^mo, 129pp. »^^ 

'* 35. Tlie Rroken Rocl*:. i2md^, 139 pp lO 

"36. Six Hollars a "Week. i2mo, 89 pp. lO 

"37. Joe's I^artner. i2mo, 128 pp lO 

** 3@. History of a Tlireepenny Kit. i2mo, 216 pp iO 

** 39. I^ittle Rliie JTacliet. T2mo, 162 pp lO 

'• 3©. ^Vard Five and ^Vard Ten. i2mo, 80 pp 1© 

"31. Roy's IWife. i2mo, 14T pp .1© 

^' :5^J. History of Two tiives. i2mo, i.:;2 pp 1© 

" 33. Cliristmas at tlie Abecs'. i2mo, 77pp... 1© 

" 8^. Faitli Hayne. i2mo, 152 pp lO 

"35. I»ack:ingt©n Parisli. i2mo, 207 pp 1© 

^^ S>0. Tlie Hiver's Haiiglater. i2mo, 118 pp 1© 

J. N. STEABNS^ Publishing Agent, 

58 HEADE street, new YORK. 



THE 

TEMPERANCE PLATFORM, 



ORATIONS ON TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND PROHIBI- 
TION, ESPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR PRIZE CON- 
TESTS, PUBLIC MEETINGS, SOCIAL 
GATHERINGS^ ETC. 



:.E3y^^ 



COMPILEiy^^"" 



Miss \^, Pknimby, 

EDITOR OF "readings AND RECITATIONS," NOS. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ; ** THE NA- 
TIONAL TEMPERANCE ORATOR," *' RALLYING SONGS FOR YOUNG TEETOTALERS," 
"the juvenile temperance reciter," NOS. 1, 2, 3, ETC. 




'I 

NEW YORK: 1^^^^ VX 

The National Temperance Society and Publication House, -3 C^ 
No. 58 Reade Street, 

i8l)2. 



HV 5-OTl 



■?fc 



copyright, 1892, by 
The National Temperance Society and Publication House. 



PRESS OF 

EDWARD O. JENKINS' 90!^, 

NEV; YOEK, 



PREFACE 



In answer to a widespread and urgent call from prominent 
workers throughout the country for a book of Speeches and 
Recitations of a thoroughly representative character for Ora- 
torical Contests, Platform Recitations, and all Temperance 
meetings, this little book has been compiled. 

Much care has been given to the selection of material, which 
has been culled from the speeches of the leading advocates of 
Temperance, widely known for their eloquence and ability ; 
and in quite a number of cases speeches have been written 
especially for this volume. 

The effort has been to furnish a collection as varied as pos- 
sible, presenting the fundamental principles of the Temperance 
Reform, giving urgent pleas for personal temperance and Total 
Abstinence as the foundation-stone and bed-rock of all true 
Temperance Reform, as well as appeals and arguments for the 
absolute prohibition of the liquor traffic. 

It is hoped that the collection will prove helpful in the ad- 
vancement of the cause and in the education of a right Tem- 
perance sentiment throughout the community. 

The Compiler. 
(3) 



CONTENTS, 



PACK 

Am I MY Brother^s Keeper ? Hon. WUliam E. Dodge 48 

Awake I Rouse Ye 1 Bishop R, S, Foster 57 

Blot Out the Saloon Hon. Oliver P, Mason 80 

Brotherhood of Man (The) Hon, /^ B, Woodbridge 61 

Coming Home from Town Hattie D, Castle 86 

Destroyer (The) H, M, Scudder, D,D 64 

Down with the Traffic Rev, Dwight Williams. .... 108 

Drinking and Sociability J. E. Rankin^ D.D 31 

Drunkards' Army (The) Hon. Henry Wilson 52 

Enemy of the Home (The) Rev. y. H. Pershing 33 

Gin Fiend (The) Charles Mackay 112 

Great Work (A) George W. Bain 20 

I have Drank my Last Glass Louisa S. Upham 59 

iIndictment of Alcohol (The) 114 

King Alcohol at the Bar of 

Science Bishop H. W, Warren 96 

Let there be Light; J. Bannatyne 84 

Liberty and License Edward Carswell 26 

Liquor Interest (The) Dr. y. G. Holland 11 

Moral Sentiment Mishop J. P. Newman 9 

Nation's Best Friend (The) J. Ellen Foster 94 

Not a Necessity, but a Costly 

Luxury, Archd^n Fred*k W. Farrar 35 

No Surrender ! No Compromise \...J. O. Peck^ D.D 50 

No " Liberty " to Do Wrong Father Walter Elliott . 75 

Our CoUxNtry : Its Dangers and 

Destiny William H. Burleigh 98 

Our Duty and Responsibility Hon, Hiram Price .... 72 

Our Platform.. , Theo, L, Cuyler^ DJ), 23 

Our Warfare and Our Trophies ..J. C. Price^ D.D 70 

Personal Responsibility John B. Gough. ., 29 

Personal Temperance Hon. O. H. Piatt . , . . . . 81 

Plea for the Children (A) Rev, Charles Garrett 15 

Plea for Liberty (A) Hon, Schuyler Col/ax 7 

Power of Right against Wrong 

(The) M. H. Pogson, D.D 106 

Present Duty Canon Basil Wilberforce. ...... 45 

Prohibition the Demand of the 

People Gen. Clinton B. Fisk 13 

Prohibition is in the Air A. C. Dixon^ D.D/, loi 

Pulverize the Rum Power. Petroleum V. Nasby 47 

Relentless Destroyer (A) Henry W. Grady i!ao 

f (5) 



6 Contents, 

PAGE 

Righteous Demand (A) Neal Dow i6 

Saloojm-Keeper'^ Story (The) .Lydia H. Tilton 104 

Shall we Fail ? Watson M, Vaughan 63 

Sober Men Only should Govern 

the Ship of State. , Hon. Richard Yates 55 

Spike that Gun ! Nelson Gregson 66 

Stumbling-Bloc KS to be Removed 

(The) , , . .Bishop John Ireland 109 

Temperance Revolution and the 

Blessings it Brings (The) , Abraham Lincoln 43 

To Liquor-Sellers Dr, Charles Jewett 24 

Tried and Condemned to Death in 

the Court of Public Opinion . . . Hon, H. W, Blair 76 

True Freedom , H, M, Ingham 99 

Unnatural Appetite (An) John B, Finch 39 

Waterloo of the Liquor Traffic 

(The) Mary T, Lathrap 54 

We will Accept no Compromise. . . r. De Witt Talmage^ D.D 17 

What can be Done ? Lyman Beecher^ D.D 78 

What is Prohibition ? R. C. Pitman, LL.D. 37 

What shall be done with the 

American Saloon ? A.B. Leonard^ D.D 116 

What have you done To-day ? Ella Wheeler- Wilcox 118 

While the Sabbath Bells were 

Ringing W, A. Eaton 69 

Which will you Choose ? Paul Denton 93 

Who is this that Defieth the 

Armies of Israel ? Elizabeth V. Richmond 42 

Woman's Prayer (A) ,Lillie A, Humphrey 91 

Work in the Home ^.,.. .Helen C. Campbell 67 

World on Fire (The) Rev, H, A. Delano — 88 



A PLEA FOR LIBERTY. 

BY HON, SCHUYLER COLFAX. 

I COME before you, to-day, not to speak to yon about political 
parties, nor about the details and conflicts of legislation. I 
come to speak to you, if possible, heart to heart and soul to 
soul. Not to denounce, but to persuade • not to demand, but 
to plead. I come to speak to you, for liberty — chat liberty 
which makes us free ; that liberty which elevates body and soul 
above the thraldom of the intoxicating cup. 

It seems to me the ravages of this monster, this foe of hu- 
manity, this enemy of mankind, are so apparent that even the 
most eloquent would fail to add anything to what your own 
eyes witness month by month of your lives. Answer this ques- 
tion to your own hearts. Is there one man or one woman here 
that cannot think now of some loved relative or some valued 
friend who has been dragged down from prosperity and hap- 
piness and usefulness to a slavery which embrutes and degrades 
its victim before it buries him in the death of the tomb ? It is 
indeed a terrible tyrant, the insatiate monster of intemperance ! 
We speak of the horrors of war, and there are horrors in war. 
Carnage, and bloodshed, and mutilation, and empty sleeves, 
and broken frames, and widows* weeds, and children's woes, 
and enormous debt, and grinding taxation, all come from war, 
though even war may be a necessity to save a nation's life. But 
they fail in all their horrors compared with those that flow from 
intemperance. We shudder as we read of the ravages of the 
pestilence that walked abroad at noonday, but the pestilence, 
like war, kills only the body and leaves the soul unharmed. 
Our blood runs cold as we hear from abroad of famine, starving 
to death its thousands of victims. But all sink into insignifi- 
cance when compared with the sorrow, and anguish, and woe, 
that follow in the train of this conqueror of fallen humanity. 

My friends, from the most learned professions, from the 
bench and the bar, from even the sacred desk, this demon, like 
death, has seemed to love to choose a shining mark. Not the 
narrow soul and heart, not the one who clutches the pennies in 

(7) 



8 A Flea for Liberty, 

his grasp, are the most in danger ; but the genial, large-hearted 
men, who are not fortified as we are fortified by the determina- 
tion not to yield to the first temptation. None of them are 
safe. From every profession he has drawn his victims. There 
is but one class whence he has never drawn any. The coronet 
on the brow of the noble of the earth, the grandest statesman- 
ship, the highest culture, the most brilliant eloquence, have not 
saved men. There is but one class that has defied him, and will 
to the end. It is we who stand, God helping us, with our feet 
on the rock of safety, against which the waves of temptation 
may dash, but they shall dash in vain. I implore you to come 
and stand with us. I plead with you, for I believe that all man- 
kind are my brethren, I believe in the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man. 

What is needed is a temperance revival based on the prin- 
ciple of individual responsibility. Not asking for law, and then 
sitting down to see it execute itself. No ! It is by laboring in- 
dividually and collectively week after week, and month after 
month, with those already in the thraldom of the tempter, and 
pleading with the rising generation to join this army and take 
its pledge. It is the pledge which should be written on our 
banners. 

Would you realize the full aggregation of sorrow ? Then go 
with me down to the individual home of the man who began 
life with wife and means and happiness, who has become a 
slave to this demon and wears his fetters on his limbs. Do 
you find happiness there? Do you find contentment there? 
Do you find prosperity ? Ah ! no. Do you fijid love and con- 
fidence? No, no. Does the wife's cheek light up with joy 
when her husband comes home as the shadows lengthen with 
each returning eve ? On the contrary, her blood chills and her 
cheek pales at the step of him who pledged her a life of devo- 
tion for the loving heart she should give to him, and from 
whom she now fears the smiting blow or the bitter word. 

My friends, I need not continue this. I leave it with you. 
All inspiration combines to give you fearful and impressive 
warning. From the inspired Word, where God declares that 
no drunkard should enter the kingdom of heaven, there comes 
a voice from the Infinite lips saying to you and to me and to 
all: "Beware, beware!" In that land where the streets are 
gold, and the gates are pearl, and the walls are jasper and 



Moral Sentiment, 9 

sapphire, the finger of Gk)d has written, "No drunkard ehan 
enter here." No drunkard shall sit down in the kingdom of 
heaven. I know not why it is there. But whatever may be 
the reason, from that Book which never errs comes this warn- 
ing to us, ** Beware!" To you it says, "Beware!" To the 
moderate drinker it says, " Beware ! " Poorhouses and prisons 
say to you, '' Beware ! " They whose arms were nerve, and 
whose forms were grace, to-day, dead from intoxication, say to 
you, with their gloomy lesson, " Beware ! " 

Does not your hope for happiness, here and hereafter, give 
emphasis to that one word which embodies all I can say to you, 
which comes from God's own lips, Beware ! 



MORAL SENTIMENT. 

BY BISHOP J. P. NEWMAN. 

After the victories of half a century, we at last confront a 
moral foe whose dominion is coextensive with the abode and 
business of man. What pre-eminent question is now before 
the world ? Is it personal liberty ? Domestic slavery has been 
destroyed from continent and island. The black man has risen 
to the dignity and to the immunities of manhood. In our own 
country he stands side by side with the Caucasian ; and what- 
ever rights yet remain for him to enjoy he will receive. 

What remains now for us to do? What great cause is to 
engage the affections, the zeal, the attention of all good persons 
in the church and out of the church ? I hold that that pre- 
eminent cause is the cause of temperance — a cause that car- 
ries its interests to the abode of every man ; for the evils of 
intemperance are coextensive with the home of every human 
being. Those evils are not confined to our republic. They are 
felt through South America and Central America; they are 
realized in all the great capitals of Europe ; they are experi- 
enced in Asia, Africa, and in the islands of the sea. Much has 
been accomplished, but much remains to be done. Some great 
facts are worthy of our cognizance, because they have received 
the approbation of every candid mind; and first of alU the 
power and the wisdom c^ personal effort and of moral suasion 



lo Moral Sentiment, 

in this great moral enterprise. I question whether there are 
two persons in any Christian land who disagree touching the 
power and the practicability of persuading men by personal 
effort to abandon the intoxicating cup. 

The law of limitation is as prevalent as law itself. This uni- 
verse, from atoms to worlds, is subject to law; atoms and 
worlds are subject to the limitations of law. Absolute liberty 
does not exist in God's universe ; it cannot coexist with God as 
the sovereign of the universe. Therefore, there must be a 
limit to law. What now remains to be accomplished ? The 
creation of an intelligent and permanent moral sentiment touch- 
ing this great cause ; for back of constitutions, and back of laws, 
and back of administrations, there lies a moral sentiment which 
gives potency to law and authority to government. This fair 
republic of ours would go to pieces, like a rope of sand, were it 
not for the existence and the sustaining of a moral sentiment 
in this country. I hold that this country is not governed so 
much by law as it is by moral sentiment. Moral sentiment here 
is more potent than government itself. It is moral sentiment 
that turns out the thieves and robbers from your city govern- 
ments. Moral sentiment may be in a minority, but whenever 
moral sentiment is aroused on the side of right, it assumes the 
proportion of omnipotence, and it is equal to any and every 
emergency. Wickedness is always cowardly. One of the great- 
est men has said, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth," 
and one gifted with a genius as great has said on the opposite 
side: 

'* Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just ; 
And he but naked, though locked tip in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 

We wish, therefore, to create an intelligent and permanent 
moral sentiment on two things : first, that intemperance is an 
evil, only evil, and always evil, whether in the form of moderate 
drinking or in the form of habitual drunkenness. We want to 
create an intelligent permanent moral sentiment that civil law 
should be on the side of this grand cause. Where and how 
shall this moral sentiment be created ? 



The Liquor Interest ii 

THE LIQUOR INTEREST. 

BY J. G. HOLLAND. 

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching ; how many of 
them ? Sixty thousand ! Sixty full regiments, every man of 
which will, before twelve months shall have completed their 
course, lie down in the grave of a drunkard. Every year dur- 
ing the past decade has witnessed the same sacrifice ; and sixty 
regiments stand behind this army ready to take its place. It is 
to be recruited from our children and our children's children. 
** Tramp, tramp, tramp '* — the sounds come to us in the echoes 
of the army just expired ; tramp, tramp, tramp — the earth 
shakes with the tread of the host now pass-ing ; tramp, tramp, 
tramp, comes to us from the camp of the recruits. What in 
God's name are they fighting for ? The privilege of pleasing 
an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of filling sixty 
thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public 
with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses 
with felons, of detracting from the productive industries of the 
country, of ruining fortunes and breaking hopes, of breeding 
disease and wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul in 
hell before their time. 

The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every depart- 
ment of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. 
It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So long 
as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condi- 
tion, it will cost America a sacrifice of sixty thousand men 
every year. The effect is inseparable from the cause. The 
cost to the country of the liquor traffic is a sum so stupendous 
that any figures which we should dare to give would convict us 
of trifling. 

The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of in- 
dustry sacrificed, the amount of bread transformed into poison, 
the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the poverty, the 
pauperism, the brutality, the wild waste of vital and financial 
resources, make an aggregate so vast, so incalculably vast, that 
the only wonder is that the American people do not rise as one 
man, and declare that this great curse shall exist no longer. 
Dilettante conventions are held on the subject of peace by men 
and women who find it necessary to fiddle to keep themselves 



12 The Liquor Interest. 

awake. A hue and cry is raised about woman suffrage, as if any 
wrong which may be involved in woman's lack of the suffrage 
could be compared to the wrongs attached to the liquor in- 
terest. 

Does any sane woman doubt that women are suffering a thou- 
sand times more from rum than from any political disability ? 

The truth is that there is no question before the American 
people to-day that begins to match in importance the temper- 
ance question. The question of American slavery was never 
an5rthing but a baby by the side of this ; and we prophesy that 
within ten years, if not within five, the whole country will be 
awake to it and divided upon it. The organizations of the 
#quor interest, the vast funds at its command, the universal 
feeling among those whose business is pitted against the na- 
tional prosperity and the public morals — these are enough to 
show that, upon one side of this matter at least, the present 
condition of things and the social and political questions that 
lie in the immediate future are apprehended. The liquor in- 
terest knows that there is to be a great struggle, and is prepar- 
ing to meet it. People both in this country and in Great 
Britain are beginning to see the enormity of this business — are 
beginning to realize that Christian civilization is actually poi- 
soned at its fountain, and that there can be no purification of it 
until the source of the poison is dried up. 

Meantime, the tramp, tramp, tramp sounds on — the tramp of 
sixty thousand yearly victims. Some are besotted and stupid ; 
some are wild with hilarity, and dance along the dusty way ; 
some reel along with pitiful weakness ; some wreak their mad 
and murderous impulses on one another, or on the helpless 
women and children whose destinies are united to others ; some 
stop in wayside debaucheries and infamies for a moment ; some 
go bound in chains, from which they seek in vain to wrench 
their bleeding wrists ; and all are poisoned in body and soul, 
and all are doomed to death. Wherever they move, crime,, 
poverty, shame, wretchedness, and despair hover in awful 
shadows. There is no bright side to the picture. We for- 
get : there is just one. The men who make this army get rich. 
Their children are robed in purple and fine linen, and live upon 
dainties. Some of them are regarded as respectable members 
of society, and they hold conventions to protect their interests. 
Still the tramp, tramp, tramp goes on. 



Prohibition the De?na?id of the People. 13 

PROHIBITION THE DEMAND OF THE 
PEOPLE. 

BY GEN. CLINTON B. FISK, 

The time would fail me to tell the thousandth part of the 
evils, multiplying and destructive, that flow out of the infa- 
mous liquor traffic. It must be driven from its places of 
power and utterly overthrov/n. The conflict is upon us. It is 
a life-and-death struggle. Oh, for an uprising of righteous in- 
dignation, for an aroused American conscience, for patriotic 
devotion to home and country like that which gave inspiration 
and faith to Jonas Parker and his neighbors when they red- 
dened the village-green of Lexington with their blood on that 
glorious morning a century and more ago, when the old Revo- 
lution burst into magnificent blossoms as the shot was fired 
that echoed round the world ; for an enlightened public opin- 
ion, the mightiest advocate of any question for the combined 
forces of Christian home, Christian church, and Christian 
commonwealth in battle array against the traffic in theft and 
murder until it shall be thundered from every political Sinai, 
national and State, "Thou shalt not, and there shall be no 
legalized saloon where floats the starry flag of the free." Not 
until then will the infamous business cease ; not until then will 
we be delivered from its Satanic sorceries. Temporizing poli- 
cies are a failure. Under all systems of license regulation or 
tax, the work of ruin and death goes on. Myriads of homes 
are poisoned, the prosperity of the nation is undermined, the 
strength of our race wasted, millions are hurried to early and 
dishonored graves, and a lurid shadow is cast upon the life 
beyond. The prohibition of the liquor traffic is the demand of 
the people, and politicians and statesmen who fail to heed it 
are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Prohibition 
is in the air. The nation's heart is beginning to throb to its 
music. Its coming is whispered on every breeze. The rising 
tide breaks all along the shore and each succeeding white- 
fringed billow washes further up the strand. 

** 'Tis weary watching wave on wave, 
And yet the tide heaves onward ; 
We build, like corals, grave on grave, 
But pave a pathway sunward. 



14 Prohibition the Demand of the People. 

We are beaten back in many a fray, 

But newer strength we borrow ; 
And where the vanguard rests to-day 

The rear shall camp to-morrow." 

Nothing can resist the onward march of a genuine reform. 
Every such movement enters into and becomes a part of the 
Messianic purpose to set judgment in the earth. Agitation 
on this question is the duty of the hour. Let it go on from 
press, platform, and pulpit, in the prayer-meetings and at the 
ballot-box, until every patriot who loves his country, every 
Christian who loves his God, every philanthropist who loves 
his race, every father who loves his child, every son of the Re- 
public will, a marshalled host, uplift the Constitution as a ban- 
ner of reform and under its folds march to the ballot-boxes of 
the land, and under an avalanche of freemen^s ballots bury 
beyond resurrection the American Saloon. Then shall our 
whole Union become the citadel of sobriety, the national name 
be purged of this great shame, and our glorious banner, 

** Whose hues are all of heaven, 
Its red the sunset's dye ; 
The whiteness of the moonlit cloud, 
The blue of morning sky," 

shall be the flag of hope for all mankind as it floats over our 
sober, free, and happy people. 

*' Let that banner float forever ; 
May its lustrous stars pale never 

Till the stars shall pale on high'; 
While there's right the wrong defeating, 
While there's faith in true hearts beating^ 
Truth and freedom shall not die. 

** As it floated long before us. 
Be it ever floating o'er us. 

O'er our land from shore to shore. 
There are freemen yet to wave it, 
Millions who would die to save it, 

Wave it, save it evermore." 



A Plea for the Children, 15 

A PLEA FOR THE CHILDREN. 

BY REV, CHARLES GARRETT. 

The children of our country are in danger, and in danger from 
strong drink. Oh ! would that I could say burning words that 
would make every man and every woman understand this terrible 
fact. The children of our country are in danger. Do you 
doubt it ? Then I ask you for a moment to think of those who 
were children with us — the children of the past generation. 
Where are they.^ Were they in no danger? Turn over the 
tablets of your memory. Ask for j^our old companions. 
Where are they.^ Go to the graveyard. Turn over the 
green turf. Find the coffin-lid, and there in hundreds, in 
thousands, aye, in tens of thousands of instances, you will find 
out that those who were boys and girls when we were, did not 
live out half their days. What do you read there .^ "Died 
aged 22 "; " Died, agqd 23 "; ** Died, aged 24." The days of 
our years are threescore years and ten, but they did not live 
threescore and ten. They are gone. 

Let us look for some more of them. Go and look at that 
workhouse. They were boys and girls as bright and promising 
as any of us. Look at their faces. Look at the dull and hope- 
less look they bear, and at the clothes they wear. They were 
once bright and promising little children, but there they are, at 
the workhouse door. And then turn across to the prison. 
Look at those men in their striped clothes. They were once 
bright, bonny boys. And go down your streets to-night, and 
there you will find the outcast, and you draw up your skirts, 
lest perad venture the touch should be pollution. Yet even she 
was once a, bright and happy girl ; once a mother blessed her 
and a father prayed for her. They were all as promising as any of 
us, but now look at them. Picture their faces if you can. Look 
at that surging mass at the reformatory, at the prison, at the 
lunatic asylum, and down in the graveyard, and then look at 
the bright and bonny faces of the children, and remember they 
were once like these ; and now I go with trembling, and I ask 
what hellish potion has transmuted fair children into beings 
like that ? Something has done it. God has not done it. '• Gh ! 
no," God says, '' it is not my will that one of them should 



1 6 A Righteous Demand, 

perish." Then, I ask, what has been the cause of this horrible 
transmutation ? 

I speak to them as they hustle at the door of the police 
station for a night's lodging. " How is it you are here ? " 
" Oh ! it's the drink that has done it." I go to the man as he 
comes — I did do so, and I said, '' How came you here ? " " Oh ! " 
said he, "I was once a scholar in your school, but the drink has 
done it." I speak to the poor outcast on the street, as I did the 
other night, and I asked, '* How came you at this terrible work ? " 
The tears stole down her young face, a bright and bonny face, 
as she said, " Oh ! sir, the drink has done it." 

And so the answer comes in horrible monotony — ** The drink 
has done it," "The drink has done it," " The drink has done 
it " — nothing but the drink could have done it. 

Then what is to be done ? " Oh ! " you say, " is it possible 
to save the children ? " It is possible ; yes, brother, it is possi- 
ble. It is possible to save every one of them. You say, '' Give 
me the remedy, and I will pay any price for it." You have 
nothing to pay. It is like the Gospel, without money and 
without price. You want to know what it is. It is a remedy as 
certain as it is cheap. What is it ? There is but one. You 
may search all through the world, you will not find another ; 
but there is one. I guarantee you, in the sight of God, that if 
you will only apply the one remedy, not a child shall perish 
from intemperance. What is it? Total Abstinence. Keep 
the child from the drink, and drunkenness is impossible. 



A RIGHTEOUS DEMAND. 

BY NEAL DOW. 

I KNOW I am right when I say that the traffic in intoxicat- 
ing liquors is at war with every interest of society, is in deadly 
hostility to every man, woman, and child to all eternity, and 
that such business ought not to be permitted to be carried on 
in a civilized and Christian community. I know it ought to be 
prohibited ; I am sure that the people will come to it, and that 
the country will be ready for it by and by. The grog-shops, as 
they exist in this country, are the cause of greater evils than all 
other causes of evil combined. No man can deny that it is so. 



We will Accept no Compromise. 17 

We demand that they shall be abolished by law. I submit, if 
any man objects to our proposition, he is bound to show that 
more good comes from the grog-shops than evil. The law- 
making power comes and shuts up the gambling-saloon, the 
lottery-shop, and the house of ill-fame, because they are incon- 
sistent with the general good. There is the grog-shop ; shut it 
up! It is ten thousand times more injurious than all other 
things combined. Railways kill a great many people, and by 
better precautionary measures life would be safer on railroads 
than it now is ; but is there any proposition to abolish railroads ? 
No ; because more good than evil comes from the railway. 
Steamboats produce immense mischief by explosions and col- 
lisions ; but it is not proposed to abolish steam navigation, 
because more good than evil comes from the use of steamboats. 
I defy any man to show that good comes from the grog- 
shops, to the amount of a single farthing, to the nation or 
to the people, while the evils flowing from them are greater 
than all other existing evils in society. No man -can deny that 
the traffic in intoxicating drinks is an infinite mischief to the 
nation, and brings misery to the people, and that the entire 
suppression of that traffic w^ould be an infinite advantage to the 
nation and an incalculable blessing to the people. If he is a 
distiller, and a member of the whiskey ring, he cannot deny that. 
Who objects ? The people who are making fortunes out of it, 
and the moderate drinkers. And this is their position : they 
must acknowledge that the liquor traffic effects the mischief 
which I have represented, and its abolition will be a great 
benefit to society ; but they say : " We will not submit to it, 
because it would put us to inconvenience to get our drink." 
Independent of the question of pecuniary interest, any man 
who objects to this movement it is upon that ground, and upon 
no other. 



WE WILL ACCEPT NO COMPROMISE. 

BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 

There are people who say, " Half a loaf of bread is better than 
no bread at all." Well, that depends entirely upon whether the 
half loaf is poisoned or not. You say half a pound of butter 



1 8 We will Accept no Compromise, 

is better than no butter. That depends upon whether it is 
oleomargarine or not ! Here is a bridge over a roaring stream. 
A freshet in the night-time sweeps away half the railroad 
bridge. The first half of the bridge stands solidly. It is half- 
past eleven o'clock at night, and the express train is coming. 
The watchman stands there with a lantern. He sees the bridge 
sound at that end, and he waves the lantern, " All is well," and 
at forty miles an hour the midnight express train sweeps on, 
and having passed the first half of the bridge — crash, crash, 
crash ! Two hundred souls gone into eternity. Better have 
had no bridge at all ; then the watchman would have swung 
his lantern of warning. Is half a bridge better than no bridge ? 

So they propose to compromise this matter. They say a pro- 
hibitory law cannot be executed, and, therefore, we had better not 
have any such law on the statute-book. Will you tell me, my 
friends, which one of our laws is fully executed ? We have a law 
against Sabbath-breaking. Millions of people break that law 
every Sunday. We have laws against blasphemy. Sometimes 
the air is lurid with imprecation. We have laws against theft, 
but you have highwaymen and burglars filling your jails and 
penitentiaries, and thousands of people outside of jail who 
ought to be inside. You have laws against murder, yet we 
have men in our jails for murder, and there are scores of mur- 
derers in the United States. 

Now, why not throw overboard these laws, if they are not 
executed fully, and let us give for a high license to a few men 
all the privileges of swearing and stealing and murder ? 

The hardest blow the temperance reformation has had in this 
century has been in the fact that some reformers have halted 
under the delusion of this high-license movement. You know 
what it is, It is the white flag of truce sent out from Alcohol- 
ism to Prohibition, to make the battle pause long enough to get 
the army of decanters and demijohns better organized. Away 
with that flag of truce, or I will fire on it ! Between these two 
armies there can be no truce ! 

On the one side are God and sobriety and the best interests 
of the world, and on the other side is the sworn enemy of all 
righteousness, and either rum must be defeated or the Church 
of God and civilization. What are you trying to compromise 
with ? Oh, this black, destroying archangel of all diabolism, 
putting one wing to the Pacific, putting the other wing to the 



^ We will Accept no Compromise, 19 

Atlantic coast, its filthy claws clutching into the torn and bleed- 
ing heart-strings of the nation, as it cries out: '* How long, O 
Lord, how long? '* Compromise with it ! You had better com- 
promise with the panther in his jungle, with the cyclone in its 
flight, with an Egyptian plague as it blotches an empire, with 
Apollyon, for whom this evil is recruiting officer, quartermaster, 
and commander-in-chief. 

Oh, my friends, let us fight this battle out on the old line, for 
victory is coming as surely as right is right, and wrong is wrong, 
and falsehood is false, and truth is truth, and God is God. Can 
it be that you are so deaf that you cannot hear in the distance 
the rumbling of the oncoming chariots of victory ? 

Better get off the track before the morning express train 
comes down with the women's temperance societies, and the 
Sons of Temperance, and the Good Samaritans, and the Good 
Templars, and the long train of Christians and philanthropists 
and reformers. Clear the track ! The cowcatcher will be all -piled 
up with smashed decanters, and the staves of beer-barrels, and 
the splinters of high-license platforms, and the rails with people 
who sat on the fence, and all the machinations and briberies 
and outrages of all Christendom. The time will come when 
there will be only ten decanters left, and they will be set up at 
the end of an alley like ten-pins, and some reformer will take 
the round ball of prohibition, and he will give one roll, but it 
will be a ten strike. 

My friends, this subject, looked at from the side of worldly 
reform., is so bright ; but looked at from the side of Christian 
reform is absolutely certain. 

God is going to destroy drunkenness. Is there a man sitting 
or standing in this assembly who doubts that God is stronger 
than the devil } 

Blucher came up just before night and saved the day at 
Waterloo. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon it looked very badly 
for the English. Generals Ponsonby and Picton fallen. Sa- 
bres broken, flags surrendered, Scotch Grays annihilated. Only 
forty-two men left out of the German brigade. The English 
army falling back and falling back. Napoleon rubbed his hands 
together, and said, ** Aha! aha ! we'll teach that little English- 
man a lesson. Ninety chances out of a hundred are in our 
favor. Magnificent ! magnificent ! '* He even sent messages to 
Paris to say he had won the day. But before sundown Blucher 



20 A Great Work, 

came up, and he who had been the conqueroi of Austerlitz be- 
came the victim of Waterloo. That name which had shaken 
all Europe and filled even America with apprehension ; that 
name went down, and Napoleon, muddy and hatless, and crazed 
with his disasters, was found feeling for the stirrup of a horse 
that he might mount and resume the contest. 

Well, my friends, alcoholism is imperial, and it is a con- 
queror, and there are good people who say the night of national 
overthrow is coming, and that it is almost night. But before 
sundown the conqueror of earth and heaven will ride in on the 
white horse, and alcoholism, which has had its Austerlitz of 
triumph, shall have its Waterloo of defeat. Alcoholism having 
lost its crown, the grizzly and cruel breaker of human hearts, 
crazed with the disaster, will be found feeling in vain for the 
stirrup on which to remount its foaming charger. ** So, O Lord, 
let Thine enemies perish ! " 



A GREAT WORK. 

BY GEORGE W. BAIN. 

Why is it up on the hill-top of capital storehouses are 
crowded, and down in the valley of poverty people starve ? It 
is because the people in the valley have not the money to buy 
the wheat, packed pork, and clothing. Why not? Listen. 
Last year, out of the pockets of the laboring classes alone, five 
hundred millions of dollars for intoxicating liquors. Within 
the past four years two thousand millions of dollars. Turn 
this amount loose to-morrow on your unsold goods, and they 
would melt like mists before the morning sun. Many a now 
barefooted boy would soon put his new trousers in his red- 
topped boots, and sing with pride a king might covet, " This 
old world is growing better"; while bright-eyed boyhood, 
laughing girlhood, and happy womanhood would praise God for 
this land of plenty and righteously-ruled government. It is a 
wonder politicians, who have telescopic eyes and skilfully scan 
economic skies, do not see this cancer eating into the life of 
this country as surely as that one did into the life of General 
Grant. 

Universal, everlasting prohibition of the manufacture, sale, 



A Great Work, 21 

and importation of alcoholic liquors, should be the demand of 
business men, Christian men, and patriots. 

There is a great work for the new century. The liquor traffic 
is entrenched behind political power. It claims to be in part- 
nership with thirty-five States of the Union and the National 
Government, the condition of the partnership being that it 
shall feed State and national finance at the cost of State and 
national morality. 

We must demand the severance of this unholy alliance ; as 
we will not tolerate a union of Church and State, we must not 
tolerate a union of State and Saloon, but see that the flag 
which floats over the American home shall not unfurl its pro- 
tecting Stars over a home-destroying Saloon. 

There should be engraven in letters of gold on one side of 
the walls of the halls of national legislation the words of Glad- 
stone : "It is the duty of Government to make it easy for the 
people to do right, and difficult for the people to do wrong." 
On the other, the words of Burke, " What is morally wrong 
can never be politically right"; arched over the speaker's 
stand the words of Henry Clay : " I would rather be right than 
President," and under this arch the sentiment of the memorable 
sentence of General Grant, *' We will fight it out on this line if 
it takes the whole of the new century." 

It is told of Ben Wade once that he rode upon his horse to 
find the Government. He went to the President, who said : ** I 
am not the Government." He went to the Senate and Con- 
gress, and they said : " We are not the Government." He then 
called his neighbors into the old schoolhouse and said : ** I 
want to talk to the Government." I ask you, gentlemen, to- 
night, if you love this American Republic, then silence the rum- 
power that is destroying our homes. But somebody says, 
** How will you do it .^" A man made a speech in the city of 
New York lately, and he said ; " Keep your temperance out of 
politics." I say, "Keep your whiskey out of politics then." 
Somebody says, "You cannot stop this rum traffic." I was 
raised down South. I learned better than that during the war. 
We don't say that any more down there. 

There is no use telling me that the rum traffic cannot be put 
down. My friends, I stand here to say that if we cannot put 
down this liquor traffic then the belief in man's capacity for 
self-government is unfounded ; but I do also affirm that the 



2 2 A Great Work. 

men who built up these glorious institutions can sweep from 
this land any evil that would blight the people. 

The only question is, v/ill we do it ? I sa^, my friends, that 
that time is coming. 

Some one says, " You temperance people have a grand idea 
if you would only sit down, be patient, and wait until public 
sentiment gets ready for your idea." 

If grand ideas had waited for public sentiment where would 
we b^ now? In the dim twilight of a tallow dip, instead of 
this electric light around us; on the old ox-team, instead of 
enjoying the speed and splendor of the Pullman palace car, and 
on this question back in the custom of the days when a man 
could advertise his business on the tombstone of his father, as 
was done when that inscription was made on a tombstone in 
the old country, which comes to us thus : 

** Here lies below in hope of Zion, 
The landlord of the Golden Lion ; 
His son keeps on the business still, 
Obedient to his country's will.'* 

Thank God, grand ideas are like time and tide, they wait for 
no man, and if you get in the way of the grand idea we cele- 
brate, and say because you don't like this or that method you 
will hinder, or set back, the movement, I recommend to you 
the doggerel of the man in the Psalms : 

** He digged a pit — he digged it deep, 
He digged it for a brother ; 
But for his sin he tumbled in 
The pit he digged for t'other. "' 

In closing, I would urge all to practical work. Don't ask 
God to let His kingdom come on earth without linking with 
this prayer your work in helping it to come. Dr. McLeod, that 
grand Scotch preacher, gives us a good illustration. He was 
on his way to a session of his church, and had with him a very 
small specimen of laity. In crossing a stream a storm struck 
the ferryboat, and for a moment it seemed as if all would go 
down. A boatman cried out, *' Let the big preacher pray for 
us," but the helmsm.an said in a loud voice, '* No ! let that little 
fellow pray and let the big one take an oar." So I say, let the 
women pray and let the men go vote the cursed traffic out of 
the land. 



Our Platform. 23 



OUR PLATFORM. 

BY REV. THEO. L. CUYLER, D.D. 

If there is any one democratic principle known among men, 
it is the principle of the right of the people to abate a public nui- 
sance, the right of the people to self-preservation. We claim, 
therefore, the right of the people in every community on ail 
this continent to suppress, by legislation, the great nursery of 
crime, pauperism, degradation, immorality, and the destruction 
of what is, after all, the life-blood of the nation — its brain and 
its working power. The liquor traffic has not only drained the 
pockets and filled the almshouses, but it murders manhood ; 
and, therefore, our American republicanism, as well as our 
Christianity, rises up in stern indignation, protesting against it, 
and demanding the right to suppress it wherever the people 
see fit to exercise that right. 

Here are our principles : total abstinence, the reformation of 
men through the love-power, personal persuasion, and the right 
to suppress the tippling-houses by law. We welcome to our 
ranks all who hate drink, and drinking usages, and dram-shops ; 
we widen our platform for all prohibitionists and moral-suasion- 
ists, asking each to stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and 
to work in the line God calls them. With God's help, hence- 
forth there shall not be dissensions, bickerings, and alienations 
in the ranks of this great Christian reform. There is work 
enough for us all. We claim that no man can work with us 
efficiently who does not so hate drink that he is willing to put 
it out of his house and to put it out of his own hand. If he 
prefers to work in the line of prohibition, so let him work ; or in 
the line of personal persuasion, so let him or her work. We have 
before us an ideal ; we are striving toward it. People say of us 
teetotalers, " You are idealists." We are. This nation would 
not be what it is to-day but for the striving toward a glorious 
ideal that the Abraham Lincolns and the Charles Sumners kept 
ever before them as the mark of the prize of their high 
calling. The Christian Church is a company of idealists striv- 
ing toward the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Just 
imagine a church drawing up a creed full of compromises. 
How long would that church live } Imagine a pulpit striving 
to preach a piebald morality. No, the temperance cause can- 



24 To Liquor- Sellers. 

not compromise. We cannot sink below our ideal, which is as 
lofty as the word of God and the welfare of humanity. We 
believe in touching not and tasting not intoxicating drinks. 
We believe in all efforts to suppress the dram-shop, and we 
shall still strive toward that end. The moment we lower the 
standard, the moment we compromise, the cause is gone, and 
we are gone with it. 

I call upon you, therefore, to stand with us on the platform 
that to so many seems mere idealism. Paul was an idealist in 
the estimation of Athens, and Corinth, and Rome. If Paul had 
abated one jot, or compromised one line, where would the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ be ? Let us put the mark as high as heaven. 
Let us take our tempted fellow-creatures by the hand, pointing 
them to that mark, bid them strive toward it, and ask God 
to help us to help them toward it. This is no hour for re- 
treat. God summons this nation now, as He summoned it 
years ago, to enter the great conflict against the most terrible 
enemy of the nation's life and liberty. 

** Deeper than thunder on summer's first shower. 
On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour , 
Shall we falter before what weVe prayed for so long, 
When the wrong is so weak and the right is so strong ? ** 



TO LIQUOR-SELLERS. 

BY DR. CHARLES JEWETT. 

Ye, who, regardless of your country's good, 

Fill up your coffers with the price of blood ; 

Who pour out poison with a liberal hand. 

And scatter crime and misery through the land ; 

Though now rejoicing in the midst of health, 

In full possession of ill-gotten wealth, 

Yet a few days, at most, the hour must come. 

When ye shall know the poison-sellers* doom, 

And shrink beneath it, for upon you all 

The indignation of a God shall fall. 

Ye know the fruits of this accursed trade, 

Ye see the awful havoc it hath made, 



To Liquor- Sellers, 25 

Ye pour to men disease, and want, and woe, 
And then tell us ye wish it were not so ; 
But, 'tis a truth, and that ye know full well, 
That some will drink so long as you will sell. 
But here that old excuse yet meets us still, 
^ If I don't sell the poison, others will." 
Then let them sell, and you'll be none the worse, 
They'll have the profits, and they'll have the curse. 
Bear this in mind, you have at your command 
The power to curse or power to bless the land ; 
If ye will sell, Intemperance still will roll 
Its wave of bitterness o'er many a soul. 
Still shall the wife for her lost husband mourn, 
And sigh for days that never shall return. 
Still that unwelcome sight our eyes shall greet, 
Of beggar'd children roaming through the street ; 
And thousands, whom our labors cannot save, 
Go trembling, tottering, reeling to the grave. 

Still loitering at your shop the livelong day. 
Will scores of idlers pass their hours away ; 
And e'en the peaceful night, for rest ordained, 
Shall with their noisy revels be profaned, 
The poisonous cup will pass, and mirth and glee 
Gild o'er the surface of their misery ; 
Uproarious laughter fill each space between — 
Harsh oaths, ungodly songs, and jests obscene. 
And there you'll stand amid that drunken throng, 
Laugh at the jest, and glory in the song. 

How oft ye see the children of the poor 

With unshod feet, unwilling, throng your door, 

And carry with them, as they homeward go. 

The fruitful source of wretchedness and woe — 

That which will change the father to a beast ; 

That which will rob a mother of her rest ; 

And take from half-fed children needful bread. 

And give them curses, frowns, and blows instead. 

Pour out your poison till some victim dies ; 

Then go, and at his funeral wipe your eyes. 

Join there that mourning throng, with solemn face. 

And help to bear him to the burial-place. 

There stands his wife, with weeping children round. 

While their fast-falling tears bedew the ground. 



26 Liberty and License, 

From many an eye the gem of pity starts, 
And many a sigh from sympathizing hearts 
Comes laboring up, and almost chokes the breath, 
While thus they gaze upon the work of death. 
The task concludes ; the relics of the dead 
Are slowly settled to their damp, cold bed. 

Come, now, draw near, my money-making friend ; 
You saw the starting — come and see the end ; 
When first you filled his glass, one would suffice ; 
Next, two were wanting ; and now, here he lies. 
Look now into that open grave, and say. 
Dost feel no sorrow, no remorse, to-day ? 
Does not your answering conscience loud declare 
That your cursed avarice has laid him there ? 

Now, since the earth has closed o'er his remains, 
Turn o'er your book, and count your honest gains. 



LIBERTY AND LICENSE. 

BY EDWARD CARSWELL. 

Mr. Chairman : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — The difference between liberty and 
license is the difference between civilization and barbarism. 
There can be no civilization without prohibition, for without it 
there would be no protection for the weak against the strong, or 
the good against the bad. 

The ten commandments form the basis of civilized law, and 
nearly every one of them is a prohibitory law, saying " thou 
shalt " or " thou shalt not." 

It is the duty, then, of a free and enlightened government to 
prohibit everything that is palpably wrong and injurious to the 
well-being of society, for it is impossible to license without be- 
coming a partner, and consequently responsible for the effects 
of the thing licensed ; and no honest government can consist- 
ently punish the effect when it has already licensed the cause. 

A license system is especially inconsistent with a republican 
form of government, where the people are supposed to govern, 
and all are equal before the law. It is inconsistent because all 



Liberty and License. 27 

license laws are discriminating and gives one man a privilege 
which it denies to others, and the more stringent and restrict- 
ive, the more discriminating and undemocratic it becomes. 
Yet, strange to say, the opponents of prohibition raise the cry 
of personal liberty : '* It will interfere with our rights as citi- 
zens, our individual liberty to do as we please." Now, my 
friends, all laws do this ; it is such laws that distinguish 
civilization from barbarism. Civilization says you shall not 
do as you please unless you please to do right. You shall not 
do to please yourself what will be displeasing and injurious to 
your neighbor. 

You shall clear the snow from your sidewalk. 

You shall not drive fast in a crowded street. 

You shall put out a flag to warn people of danger if you have 
small-pox in your house. 

You shall not set fire to your own property. 

You shall give 16 ounces to the pound and 36 inches to the 
yard when you sell goods. 

You shall not sell diseased meat, watered milk, or adulterated 
food ; no matter how many are willing to buy or how cheap you 
may be willing to sell. Now a license to do any of these things, 
or to leave the others undone, would be considered an outrage 
on civilization. 

" You cannot make people virtuous by law," says our oppo- 
nents. 

This we admit. It is the Gospel and not law that will change 
the hearts of men. But the law can put the bad Wxiere they 
cannot contaminate or injure the pure. You cannot make a 
madman sane by law, but the law can hold him so that he may 
not injure himself or others. 

You cannot by law prevent powder from exploding when 
touched by fire, but it can hold the man with the lighted match. 

Then the supporters of the license system say, " You would 
dictate by law what we shall eat and what we shall drink." 

No prohibitionist ever asked for such a law. What we do 
ask is a law to prevent men making and selling that which 
brings sorrow, misery, disease, and death to thousands and 
benefits no one but the maker and the seller. 

There is no law to prevent a man from having the small-pox 
if he wants to and can catch it ; but when he has it, then the law 
steps in and takes him away to an isolated place where he can- 



28 Liberty and License. 

not contaminate others. And thus the law protects the many 
by interfering with the liberty of the one. 

When New York City had its small-pox scare the sanitary 
officers carefully searched the city for small-pox cases, and when 
any were found, whether rich or poor, young or old, they were 
sent to a hospital built on an island down the bay. In one 
case a little child only two years old was found suffering from 
this disease. It was at once taken from its home and mother 
and sent to the hospital. This was certainly interfering with 
the mother and child. But if it had remained in the crowded 
tenement-house hundreds of lives would have been sacrificed 
to preserve the personal liberty of this family, and the family 
itself would most likely have been the first victims. 

'' The greatest good to the greatest number " is the foundation 
idea of a free government. But in licensing the liquor traffic 
our Government acts in a diametrically opposite direction. In 
the small pox case it takes away the cause by isolating the one 
with the disease. In the liquor case it licenses the spreader of 
the disease and punishes the victims by locking them up. 

The Government not only robs the drinker of his personal 
liberty, but helps to impoverish his family by taking from them — 
by way of fine — what money the grog-seller has not already 
taken, or locks him up where he cannot earn bread for his chil- 
dren. Thus the family and all suffer because the father has 
been too liberal and patriotic in his support of the Government 
by patronizing its partner — the grog-seller. 

There are only two sides to this question—the right and 
the wrong. Strong drink as a beverage i^s good or it is bad. 
If good, it should be free to all. If bad, it should be prohibit- 
ed. There can be no compromise with evil, for the devil has no 
conscience and cheats every time. 

But it is not for the many that our opponents speak, but for 
their own individual interest. Their pleading comes not from 
the heart and conscience, but from their pockets and their ap- 
petite. It is not the welfare of others they seek, but their own 
gratification. 

If men would look at this question from a Christian and pa- 
triotic standpoint ; if they would think of the country's wel- 
fare before their own ; if a man would be willing to put right be- 
fore self ; if he would work for the glory of God, the best interests 
of mankind, the welfare of his country, and the honor of its flag ; 



Personal Responsibility. . 29 

in other words, if men would pray and work and vote as heart 
and conscience dictated, then public opinion like a cyclone 
would drive the liquor traffic like a black cloud from the conti- 
nent, and prohibition would be proclaimed from sea to sea. 

And the nation would become a mighty choir and sing as it 
had never sung before : 

** Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ; 
Praise Him, all creatures here below." 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

BY JOHN B. GOUGH. 

When Daniel Webster was Secretary of State, he was dining 
with some gentlemen at the Astor House, and they tried to get 
him into conversation, with but very little result. He sat there 
very mute and very dull. At last one gentleman said, " Mr. 
Webster, among all the thoughts, the grand thoughts, that 
have filled your mind, what was the most important one that 
ever occupied it ? " Mr. Webster, with those great eyes of his, 
glanced round the table. Passing his hand across his forehead, 
he said, "The most important thought that ever occupied my 
mind was that of my individual responsibility to God." And 
in too many cases a persistent course of selfish dissipation 
stifles and checks this sense of obligation, and men grow into 
the habit of living simply for themselves and the present lifel 

"Ah," said a young man to a friend, " if I were only lucky 
enough to own this estate I should be a happy fellow." His 
friend said, " And then, what ? " " Then what ? Why, I would 
pull down the old house and build a mansion, and would have 
a lot of brave, jolly fellows round me, and I would have the best 
horses and dogs in the country. " " And then, what ? " " Why, 
I would keep open house and have a jolly time, and I would 
hunt, and I would travel, and I would see life gloriously, my 
boy." "And then, what?" " Oh, well, by and by, I suppose, 
in the course of time, I should grow old, and not care so much 
for these things ; and then I should retire into quiet luxury to 
the end of my life ! " " And then, what ? " " Well, at the end 
of my life I should leave all these pleasant things, I suppose, as 



30 Personal Responsibility,, 

other people have to do— and die." '* And then, what ? " ** Oh, 
bother your * Then whats ' ! " and he went away. Some years 
afterward the friend was accosted with " God bless you ! I owe 
all my happiness to you." "How so.^'* "By three words 
spoken to me years ago — * And then, what ?* " 

I sometimes wish I could lay hold of the young men who are 
drifting, by their vicious habits, into the sea of a useless life. 
How many are leading useless lives ! An aimless existence ! — 
what a mockery of life is that! — living for nothing! Young 
men, your childhood has gone ; what have you done with it ? 
Your youth has gone; what have you done with it.^ what 
have you made of it ? Your young manhood is going : what 
are you doing with it ? Are you a better man to-day than 
you were a year ago ? You ought to be. Are you 1 Stand 
still, and take stock. The mariner who wishes to save his ship, 
looks to his compass and takes his observation. An aimless 
existence ! Who can tell or describe the fearful void ; the 
yearning for an object; the self-reproach for wasted powers; 
the weariness ; the loathing of pleasure and frivolity ; what a 
terrible sense of deadening life, and a spiritual paralysis ; with 
no response to human interests — no sympathy with noble 
deeds ; when the world becomes a blank, and nothing of life is 
left but a benumbing sense of personal helplessness and desola- 
tion ! Oh, better, nobler, to stand face to face with wrong and 
sin, battling for victory — ^better to step out like an iconoclast to 
beat down the Dagons of vice that your fathers have wor- 
shipped ; better to strike out, and wrestle, and fight a crowd for 
their own good ; better seize a truth, and, a§i a soldier seizes his 
standard, defend it, fight for it against scorn and opposition and 
contempt ; and, if necessary, die for it — rather than become a 
mere human machine moving in a dull round of selfishness and 
folly ! 

Let my pulses swell like a torrent ! let them pour themselves 
out till they cease to throb ! let my heart, my brain, my nerves, 
work their work, though my life be short, and swift as a shuttle 
through the loom— and though it be but a day only, it shall be 
as one of the days of God, and they are as a thousand years. 
A true man ! Where shall we find one ? Where shall we find 
a man as God would have him ? Stand up, thou grand image 
of a true man, let us look upon thee ! Raise thy face, sublime 
in its gentleness, with those pure lips through which the foul 



Drinking and Sociability, 31 

impieties of boasting youth have never passed — with lips that 
have never breathed impurity — with eyes that have never 
scorned to shed a tear of sympathy for others' sorrows ! Lift 
up that hand which has never used its strength against a weaker 
fellow-creature ! Stand up, noble and meek hearted ; and show 
us the semblance of a true man. In the midst of a debased and 
degraded world, stand forth adorned with integrity, sobriety, 
and all virtues ! We look upon such an image with admi- 
ration ; and then we turn aside to look at men as they make 
themselves. 



DRINKING AND SOCIABILITY. 

BY J. E. RANKIN, D.D. 

You talk about the sociability promoted by the use of liquor. 
Can a man conceive of two greater fools than two men who 
step up to a public bar and drink each other's health in liquid 
fire, which flies at once to their heads, makes their steps un- 
steady, their speech double ; if it is not the first spark of an 
inward burning, which, for a time, unfits them to see their 
friends, and makes them the personification of wretchedness 
and woe. This is their sacrifice on the altar of sociability and 
health ! Sociability indeed ! Health indeed ! Why, except in 
bitter irony, that should be chosen, in which sensible men 
pledge each other's physical well-being, that liquid which is 
sure to undermine it ; and why that should be chosen to pro- 
mote sociability which soon sets one or both into thick, inar- 
ticulate speech, and ends with making the sign-language of no 
use to them ; and silence like the silence of death-slumber, 
their last case, it would take a wiser man than I am to tell. I 
have known too many men fresh from great banquets, which 
were feasts, where they sacrificed themselves to make sport for 
the Philistines who cheered them on ; fresh from a casual 
meeting with an old army friend ; who were left wallowing irr 
the depths of a solitary misery, of which no tongue can ade- 
quately speak. 

" As the fool thinks, so the bell clinks." Ah ! if I should 
select the greatest enemy to society, between man and man ; 
that which most breaks up man's confidence in man and respect 



32 Drinking and Sociability. 

for man ; that which sunders the employee from the kind em- 
ployer; that which tempts the clerk to be untrue to his noble 
master ; the son to chafe under the authority of his father, and 
fling away as a worthless weed the love of his mother ; that 
which promotes unfaithfulness to the vows of pure love and 
the covenant of marriage ; that which keeps the hopper of the 
divorce-mill full of applications for release from that which 
seems a body of death ; I should say that it was this drink- 
custom ; this habit of putting something into a man's mouth 
which steals away his brains, poisons his best affections, and 
hardens his heart against human love and love divine ; makes 
him feel like shutting himself up in his chamber, and putting a 
bullet through the desecrated temple, of which God has made 
him the tenant. Isolation ! That is the word ; not sociability. 
The time often comes when this victim of the sociability which 
drink fosters, cannot bear society such as this world gives ; has 
to withdraw himself, immure himself, wall himself away from 
the fellowship of his kind, as behind iron bars ; v/hen he has to 
treat himself as though he were an insane man and needed a 
keeper. Ah, how often do men reject the divine Keeper, to 
find that they need, and must have, a human keeper ; one who 
has keys, and shuts them up with the sound of a great iron bolt, 
shooting into its relentless socket. How many broken-hearted 
mothers there are, into whose heart a sword pierces every time 
they think of a son ; how many sad-eyed wives, every time they 
think of a husband who cannot be trusted to go alone among 
their fellows, because this practice, which promotes sociability, 
compels them to go whither they w^ould not., 

I have often thought, that great as are our American poets, 
they have failed in one respect : they have written no songs in 
praise of modern liquors : that there are no true successors to 
Anacreon and Horace and Burns. I must make one honorable 
exception, and this, I presume, less because he is a greater poet 
than because he is also a physician. I mean : Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. You all remember his lines, half in irony, half in 
earnest : 

** Come, fill a fresh bumper ! For, why should we go 
While the logwood still reddens our cups, as they flow : 
Pour out the decoction, still bright with the sun, 
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the dyestuff shall run. 



The JSne?ny of the Home, 2iZ 

The half -ripened apples their life-dews have bled ; 
How sweet is the taste of the sugar of lead ! 
For, summer's rank poison lies hid in the wines ; 
They were ground by stable-boys smoking long nines. 
Then a scowl and a howl, and a scoff and a sneer, 
For strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer : 
In cellar, in parlor, in attic, in hall, 
Down, down with the tyrant, which masters us all ! " 



THE ENEMY OF THE HOME. 

BY REV. J. H. PERSHING. 

The home is the centre of civilization, and needs protection. 
The greatest enemy of the home is the " rum traffic." Every- 
thing good has its enemies — not that it ought to be so, for we 
think good should be without restraint, and good pursue evil, 
and chase it from our "native land." God speed the right. 
Not only our homes, but our gardens, fields, grain, and fruit 
have their enemies— even virtue and liberty, as well as our 
boasted independence. Our forefathers had their enemies in 
the wild beasts and red men of the forest. We have a more 
formidable enemy in civilized society. Like the cowering beast 
and cowardly, skulking savage, the " rum^ traffic " is seeking 
places of seclusion, and we have to cope with it in '' high 
places," where it secretes itself behind " principalities and pow- 
ers"; also in low places, where it would deign to hide from " the 
arm of the law." This is an old enemy with new tactic-, ever 
and anon changing his base. It has a " signal-service corps " 
to observe any approach made upon it. It is well intrenched. 
The line of battle extends through many ages. Many have 
been the slain. Following back through Hebrew history to ' 
Noah, we see traces of its carnage. We see weakness instead 
of strength, sickness instead of health, poverty instead of 
wealth, foolishness instead of wisdom, unrest instead of peace, 
pain instead of joy. At times we see it having the semblance 
of a devouring beast ** raging " like a madman. In the face of ' 
the royal Proverbs it heeds not the warning, but calls with 
trumpet sound more to its ranks. It sweeps on with a besom 
of destruction in its path unparalleled in history. The rank 



34 ^^^ Enemy of the Home. 

and file extends from sea to sea. What a pity ; for soon, ah ! 
soon, all who continue to march with them shall fall in heaps, 
like Sennacherib's host. The cries of the wounded and dying 
are heard from hill-top to hill-top, and all through the valleys 
— brawls, blows, bruises, red eyes, pug noses, bleared faces, 
aches, stinging serpents, and biting adders. The Rechabites 
and Nazarites alone are conquerors. Hannibal, Cyrus, Xerxes, 
Alexander, Napoleon, Wellington, Washington, and Grant are 
names that are written on the page of history as great warriors. 
Socrates, Cicero, Demosthenes, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, Ever- 
ett, and Lincoln, with Csesar to form the link between these 
warriors and statesmen, are men with marked history, and their 
characters are emulated by the youth of our land from age to 
age. Their spirit is thus instilled in their veins, and the result 
is we have warriors and statesmen by the hundred. They have 
the greatest honors paid them, and are lamented in death the 
most, as well as having the most costly monuments. But those 
who strive to follow the example of the Rechabites and Naza- 
rites are the most remarkable of all, and build for themselves 
the most lasting monuments. Samuel, with his mother as a re- 
flector, shines out as a beacon-light, while those named above 
are lesser lights in the conquest of life. Samuel's life shed 
light down through the Hebrew age to all ages and nations as 
the Nazarene who vowed by a solemn religious obligation before 
God to taste not, touch not, handle not, Samson, the same. 
He needed not a stimulant at the gates of Gaza. His red 
cheeks, iron muscles, and stout manhood can be made a living 
example. John the Baptist is another. 'Great men by thou- 
sands have come and gone. Which were the greatest among 
them all ? Jesus says, " There has not appeared among men a 
greater than he." Why so ? Becau e he was a teetotaler. His 
life of virtue, plain living, self-denial, and devotion to God and 
man are central excellences in bis character. Hark ! The 
bugle calls to the battle. Up and forward all along the line. 
Oh, for one determined, desperate drive at the enemy. Thrust 
him through with sword. Charge upon his works. Guard well 
the home. Keep diligent watch on all the ramparts. Man 
every gun. Keep up a continual fire from the pulpit, from the 
press, from the platform, from the business-mart, from the social 
circle, from right, from left, from front, from rear. March on, 
march on, ye hosts of the Lord ! Heaven s help has come to our 



Not a Necessity^ but a Costly Luxury, 35 

aid. Angels with lightning speed form an advance guard. " Press 
with vigor on ! " shout the noble women. The sky rolls back 
like a scroll. The redeemed of the Lord shout for joy, *' The 
enemy is vanquished, the enemy is vanquished ! '' And up 
from every hill-top and every valley and every home goes a voice 
that fills the whole earth, '' Victory ! Victory ! ! Victory ! ! ! " 



NOT A NECESSITY, BUT A COSTLY 
LUXURY. 

BY ARCHDEACON FREDERICK W. FARRAR. 

It used to be believed that alcohol was a food. It is now con- 
clusively demonstrated that it is not food ; that it contains not 
one single element — whether nitrogenous or hydro-carbonic — of 
food ; and that, as one of the first of modern chemists has said, 
there is, in nine quarts of alcohol, less food than can be spread 
on the end of a table-knife. Nor is it a source of strength. 
For, alike in Africa and India, in the Arctic and Antarctic, and 
by great labor employers in the temperate zones, and by dis- 
tinct experiments with navvies in gangs and soldiers on the 
march, it is matter of proof that those can labor best, both 
physically and mentally, in whom the cold is not intensified by 
the weakening reaction from artificial stimulant, and in whom 
the sun's fierceness has "no alcoholic ally within the brain." 
Nor is it a source of health ; for the lives of total abstainers are 
now known to be more valuable in an insurance than other 
lives, and not a few very eminent living physicians have testi- 
fied that the daily use of it, even in quantities conventionally 
deemed moderate, not only "causes some of the most fearful 
and dangerous maladies,*' but even " injures the body and di- 
minishes the mental powers to an extent of which few people 
are aware.*' Least of all, then, is it a necessity, seeing that it 
has been happily unknown to whole races and prohibited by 
immense religions ; millions of total abstainers, of whom not 
one has ever repented, can testify that since they abandoned 
it, they, like the Nazarites of old, have been clearer of brain 
and more strong of lim.b, more vigorous in health, and more 
calm in happiness. 



36 Not a Necessity^ but a Costly Luxury, 

I might go on to any extent with such evidence ; and on the 
yet stronger faith of daily experience, I again assert, not as a 
dubious theory, but as an established fact, that to men in or- 
dinary health alcohol is not a food, nor a necessity, nor a source 
of health, nor of warmth, nor of physical strength, least of all 
of mental power, but that, when it is not a potent medicine, it 
is a mere luxury — a luxury which is at best not harmless, but 
which is frequently dangerous ; sometimes fatal ; always quite 
superfluous ; never particularly noble. 

Alcohol is a luxury and nothing but a luxury ; and if, being 
healthy, we indulge in it at all, it is not because we need it, but 
because we like it. Well, and this being so, what does this 
luxury cost ? At what expense does the nation gratify its lik- 
ing ? I will tell you. It costs us in tillage the waste of mill- 
ions of acres of soil ; in food, the destruction of millions of 
tons of grain ; in hard cash, the deleterious absorption of mill- 
ions of dollars. It is, beyond all question, the one main, if not 
the sole, cause of the squalid, degrading, and dangerous pau- 
perism against which some of you will have to struggle here- 
after. 

You have heard what drink costs to this nation in money ; 
what does it cost in disease and accident.^ Ask the dreary 
pages of statistics, and you will read that in so-called accident, 
but accident perfectly preventable, it cost us broken limbs and 
shipwrecked vessels, and burned houses, and shattered railway 
trains, and the deaths of children overlaid by drunken mothers 
or beaten savagely by drunken fathers ; and to tell you what it 
costs in disease, I should have to take you, not in fancy, but in 
hard fact, to what the poet saw as the result of intemperance in 
meats and drinks : 

** A lazarhouse it seemed, wherein were laid 
Numbers of all diseases — all maladies. 
Of ghastly spasm and racking torture : qualms 
Of heartsick agony ; all feverous kinds — 
Dropsies, and asthmas, and heart-racking rheum. 
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans ; despair 
Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch, 
And over them, triumphant, Death his dart 
Shook — delayed to but strike." 

He alone, by whom the hairs of our head are all numbered, 
can count the widows who are widows because of drink; the 



What is Prohibition? 37 

madmen who are mad because of it ; the gray heads that it has 
made gray ; the sad hearts that it has crushed with sadness ; 
the ruined families that it has ruined ; the brilliant minds which 
it has quenched ; the unfolding promise which it has cankered ; 
the bright and happy boys and girls whom it has blasted into 
shame and misery ; the young and the gifted which it has hur- 
ried along into dishonored and nameless graves. 

Is it not Shakespeare himself who says : " O thou invisible 
spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call 
thee Devil ! " What does drink cost in human misery ? Ah ! 
how can T tell you ? Can T count the leaves of the forest or the 
sands upon the shore ? And the sounds of this misery are like 
the sighing of the leaves of illimitable forests, and the plashing 
on the shores of unfathomable seas. 



WHAT IS PROHIBITION? 

^ BY ROBERT C. PITMAN, LL.D. 

What is meant by prohibition ? We do not intend by pro- 
hibition to enact a bill of fare for the people. We do not pro- 
pose any sumptuary measures for the regulation of mankind. 
We do not design to give directions by legislative enactments 
to physicians in relation to the dietetic treatment of their 
patients. We simply ask for a law which shall be lifted as a 
shield to save our fellow-men from the terrible blow which is 
aimed at them by the liquor traffic. We ask the men who 
make our laws to protect us from the evils which accompany 
the rum trade. The rum trade makes men mad, and under the 
influence of rum men will assault their neighbors, starve and 
beat their wives and children, commit theft, arson, and murder. 
We ask men of every shade of politics, of every creed in re- 
ligion, to join with us in our earnest efforts to stop the liquor 
traffic and seal up the dram-shops. Is it unreasonable and ar- 
bitrary to demand a law which shall squelch the cause of the 
effect v/e all deplore ? Here is a man who contributes nothing 
toward his own support ; he is a tax and a nuisance, vibrating 
between the grog-shop and the station-house. Sober men have 
to foot his bills, support his family, suffer the infliction of his 



38 What is Prohibition? 

bad habits, and run the risk of his torch and his knife. Now, 
is this a fair and square condition of things? Shall the inno- 
cent be burdened with the sins of the guilty ? That man would 
take care of himself and of those who depend upon him, if the 
liq.uor-shops were closed. He would contribute his share of 
tax toward the support of the institutions of government, and 
he would cease to be a scarecrow in society. Now rum lights 
his torch; rum nerves his arm to strike the innocent; rum 
fires the temper which makes his mouth break out in eruptions 
of wicked speech ; rum sharpens the blade of assassination. 
We ask for a law of prohibition which shall say, without circum- 
locution, ** No man shall poison another man ; no man shall sell 
to another that which will deprive his mind of reason and his 
heart of feeling/' We demand prohibition because it is in accord- 
ance with the laws of self-preservation — the first law of nature ; 
because it is practical, and has worked wonders of reform where 
it has been carried into execution ; because the tax-payers and 
all the decent members of society, and the wives and children 
of all, are entitled to its protection ; because even the dram- 
sellers and their drunken victims will be benefited by it; and 
because it is in unison with the high and holy enactments of 
God in the Ten Commandments. There we find no half-way 
law, no license for the committing of sin. ** Thou shalt not 
steal,'* is the language of the Scriptures. He who receives 
money without returning an equivalent, steals. The rumseller 
does not give an equivalent for the money he receives ; hence 
he steals. We ask our human legislators to echo the divine 
legislation, and say to the dealers in rum, " Thou shalt not 
steal." Thou shalt not make thy neighbor steal. " Thou shalt 
not kill" by selling that which does kill a hundred thousand 
victims a year. Prohibition is the translation of the sixth com- 
mandment into human law. " Thou shalt not kill "—not even 
for five hundred, or five thousand dollars a year. " Thou shalt 
not kill " with arsenic, nor with alcohol, by degrees nor suddenly, 
in the city nor in the country. This is prohibition. We want to 
prohibit vice and crime, theft and murder, and all the evils 
which flow from intemperance. 



An Unnatural Appetite. 39 

AN UNNATURAL APPETITE. 

BY JOHN B. FINCH. 

There is no such thing as a natural right to drink whiskey, 
because in nature such a thing as whiskey or beer is unknown. 
God never created alcohol. You may take corn and pile it up 
as high as heaven and let it rot to earth — every hour of its de- 
composition test it with the most delicate chemical tests, and 
you will never find alcohol in the process of rotting. I have 
taken grapes from the table in my office and crushed them, not 
enough to break the starch cells, — tested them until the blue 
mold had eaten them up, and alcohol did not appear during the 
process of decay. God does not rot things that way. Alcohol 
comes in when mechanical force is used to break the starch 
cells and bring the starch in contact with the juice. You must 
have the starch in connection with the juice when this unnat- 
ural kind of fermentation takes place. *' But," objects one, " if 
God did not create alcohol, He did create the laws that cause 
the formation of alcohol." Granted. God made iron. He 
made the laws of cohesion and adhesion, but God did not make 
butcher-knives, and what would you think of the intelligence 
of a man who would prate about a natural appetite for butcher- 
knives ! God created the laws that govern the formation of 
gunpowder, but nowhere in God's universe can you find gun- 
powder existing as the result of natural processes. What would 
you think of a man who would prate about a natural appetite 
for gunpowder ! A natural appetite for something that is un- 
natural is a thing that no man can understand ; hence, you see, 
the right is not a natural one. 

In order to understand the primary principles underlying this 
reform, let us see what you mean by the terms natural appetite 
or desire. You say, " I have an appetite for liquor," and yet no 
man ever had a natural appetite for any kind of alcoholic 
liquors. You say, "I think I have." Appetite is a demand 
for supplies. In the school, in the store, in the office, you keep 
up a certain amount of muscular force ; then you become hun- 
gry. What is hunger.^ A demand for supplies. The body 
asks you to supply it something out of which it may make 
force to take the place of the force you have used up. You go 
to the table, eat slowly, masticate the food thoroughly, and 



40 An Unnatural Appetite, 

when you get up and go away, where is your appetite ? A de- 
mand for supplies, and when the supplies are furnished it is 
satisfied. Go to the saloon. You say : " I have an appetite 
for liquor." Drink one glass. Do you not want the second, 
then the third and fourth, more than the second } My liquor 
friend, you grant me the proposition when you say : *' I have 
will-power enough to stop." You do not use will-power to stop 
eating pork and beans when you have enough. The difference 
is this : When you give a natural appetite what it asks for, it 
is satisfied ; when you give a diseased craving what it asks for, 
it but craves for more. 

If we follow out this thought it will meet another sophistry 
often urged by the liquor men, viz., that the liquor business of 
this country is governed by the same laws of political economy 
that govern the sale of the necessaries of life. You ask what 
they mean. They answer : " You must do away with the de- 
mand and the supply will cease. It is the demand which creates 
the supply." Did you ever hear this statement? There is not 
a student before me but knows this statement of the law is not 
correct. The true rule of political economy is this : In the 
case of absolute necessaries the supply is brought into exist- 
ence by the demand, but in the case of created luxuries the 
supply brings into existence the demand. There is a natural 
demand for food ; you must have it or die. Food being an ab- 
solute necessity, the supply follows the demand. Alcoholic 
liquor is not an absolute necessity. Give it the best position 
you can and it is a dangerous luxury. 

Gentlemen, when you have broken down* the lighted bar, 
when you make this business outlawry, when you have driven 
it into holes — old bummers may get it, but the boys of this 
country, bright and brave, and manly, will never sneak after 
something for which they have not learned to care. It is an 
enemy of American liberties and must be destroyed. 

** The crisis is upon us ! face to face with us it stands, 
With solemn lips of questioning, like the Sphinx in Egypt sands. 
This day we fashion destiny, the web of life we spin, 
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin. 
Even now from misty Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy crown, 
Call we the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing down." 



Who is this that Defieth the Armies of Israeli 41 



WHO IS THIS THAT DEFIETH THE AR- 
MIES OF ISRAEL? 

BY ELIZABETH Y. RICHMOND. 

Who is this that walks the land, 
Iron-mailed, and strong-hearted, 
Bleared of eye and dark of brow, 
Whence the Goliath hath departed ? 
Stalking through the sacred places, 
Scoffing at the gathered legions 
Tearing down the ancient standards 
With his desecrating hand ; 
Marching through the stricken land 
Like a tiger, at whose command 
Crouch and bend earth's strong and mighlye 
Laden with his rusty fetters, 
Writhing 'neath his darkling brand. 

Crimson are his spectral robes. 

As from fated fields all gory, 

And his sanguine deeds are told 

All along the page of story ; 

All along the weary ages. 

Seers, and conquerors, and sages. 

All have bent their lance to him. 

He of ghastly front and grim. 

He hath ruled the field and forum ; 

He hath dwelt in sacred cloisters. 

He hath laughed at purpled monarchs, 

Seated on majestic thrones ; 

Laughed at all their pearls and ermine, 

Scoffed at all their pomp and glory, 

Left them groveling among the stones \ 

He hath trodden fields of battle 
Till the blood rose to the halter ; 
With a step ne'er known to tremble 
And a heart ne'er known to falter ; 
He hath filled the land with carnage, 
Filled the land with blight and ruin ; 
Heaped the wrecks of his undoing 
Through the desolated coast. 



42 Who is this that Defieth the Armies of Israeli 

Till the cry grows higher, louder, 
" Give us back our sons and daughters I 
Give us back our homes and altars I 
Give us back the blighted hearthstones, 
Where thy fiendish feet have crossed 1 ** 

Up among the stately hills, 

Down along the peaceful valleys, 

Sound his bugle notes and shrill, 

Where his grim battalions sally ; 

And the father's heart grows fainter, 

And the mother's cheek grows paler, 

For the darlings of their roof-tree. 

At the demon signal rally. 

And their thresholds in the twilight 

Grow more wearisome and lone, 

Ai d the lights from out their casements 

In the pleasant eves are gone ; 

And the night wind, wild and dreary, 

In the midnight maketh moan ! 

Ye may know his impious stride. 
This oppressor of the people — 
By the graves along the highway ; 
By the dirge that rocks the steeple ; 
By the widow's prayer and pleading ; 
By the orphan's interceding ; 
By the wail that ceases never ; 
Still outbursting through the years ; 
By the ocean-floods of tears 
Washing channels down the ages ; 
By the sobs that burst forever. 
From the dungeon's grated doors ; 
By the cry of desolation 
Through the universe that pours. 

Shall we sit with folded hands 
Till his mail ring at our altars ? 
Till his shield and halberd clang. 
Where our children's footsteps falter ? 
Till this Paynim and his legions. 
Through our holiest of holies, 
With their brutal curses throng. 
Till he trample down the daisies. 



The Temperance Revolution. 43 

Till he blight the early blossoms, 
Till he crush the hopes of manhood, 
That have gathered round our hearth ; 
Till he leave us in the darkness 
With nought but wrecks about us, 
But the cinders and the ashes, 
That the whirlwinds of the North — 
In their track of desolation, 
Scatter forth ! 

Let us sound the signal gun, 
Let us light the beacon-torches I 
Bid the standard-bearers flock 
To the ranks, and lead the marches ^ 
Light the fires along the coastland ! 
Let the temples on the hilltops 
Flash their light from every steeple, 
Till our sons rise in their manhood, 
And our daughters in their strength, 
And crush this proud Goliath 
That defieth thus our armies ; 
And Israel's God shall conquer 
With his powerful arm at length. 



THE TEMPERANCE REVOLUTION AND 
THE BLESSINGS IT BRINGS. 

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Although the temperance cause has been in progress many- 
years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned 
with a degree of success hitherto unparalleled. 

The list of friends is daily swelled by the addition of fifties, 
of hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself seems sud- 
denly transformed from a cold, abstract theory, to a living, 
breathing, active, and powerful chieftain, going forth " conquer-' 
ing and to conquer.** The citadels of his great adversary are 
daily being stormed and dismantled ; his temples and his altars, 
where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been per- 
formed, and where human sacrifice has long been wont to be 
made, are daily desecrated and deserted. What one of us but 



44 ^^^ Temperance Revolution, 

can call to mind some relative, more promising in youth than 
all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity ? He 
ever seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel of death, 
commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every 
family. Shall he now be arrested in his desolating career? In 
that arrest all can give aid that will ; and who shall be excused 
that can and will not ? Far around as human breath has ever 
blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our 
friends prostrate in the chains of moral death. To all the liv- 
ing, everywhere, we cry, " Come, sound the moral trump, that 
they may rise and stand up an exceeding great army "; " Come 
from the four winds, O breath ! and breathe upon these slain 
that they may live." If the relative grandeur of revolutions 
shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they 
alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, Indeed, will 
this be the grandest the world shall ever have seen. 

Of our political revolution of '76 we are justly proud. It has 
given us a degree of political freedom far exceeding that of any 
other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution 
of the long-mooted problem as to the capability of man to 
govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and 
still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of man- 
kind. 

But with all these glorious results, past, present, and to come 
it has its evils too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, 
and rode in fire ; and long, long after, the orphans' cry and the 
widows' wail continued to break the sad silence that ensued. 
These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings 
it brought. 

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find 
a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a 
greater tyrant deposed ; in it, more of want supplied, more dis- 
ease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, 
no widows weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling, none in- 
jured in interest, even the dram-maker and dram-seller will 
have glided into other occupations so gradually as never to have 
felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the 
universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this to the 
cause of political freedom ! With such an aid, its march can- 
not fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in 
rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty. 



Present Duty, 45 

Happy day, when all appetites controlled, all passion subdued, 
all matter subjected ; mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and 
move the monarch of the world ! Glorious consummation ! 
Hail, fall of fury ! Reign of reason, all hail ! 

And when the victory shall be complete — when there shall 
be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth — how proud the 
title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace 
and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended 
in that victory ! How nobly distinguished that people who 
shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political 
and moral freedom of their species ! 



PRESENT DUTY. 

BY CANON BASIL WILBERFORCE. 

The Temperance movement is divided into two marked 
spheres of activity. The first consists in the endeavor, by 
earnest persuasion, by constant preaching of the power of the 
living Gospel, to induce the people to keep themselves away 
from the drink ; and the other great sphere of activity is, by 
wise and courageous and permissive legislation, to persuade 
the drink to keep itself away from the people. I am not pre- 
pared to allow for a moment that hard-and-fast conventional 
line which some people draw between the Christian religion 
and the legislative power of this nation. The ethics of Jesus 
of Nazareth are not refined imbecility. They are not some 
spiritual chloroform, warranted to keep men quiet, and sat- 
isfy them with their own personal religion. It is not some 
code of morals to teach people a more rigid self-centred- 
ness in their lives. It is based on the principle, **Save thou 
one soul and thou mayest save thine own.'* It is based on a 
code which teaches that every one who accepts it is obliged to 
fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, if it is not a 
mere organized hypocrisy. It teaches that no man dares look 
there, in the face of God, and say, *' Our Father, which art in 
heaven," if he cannot echo the words by saying, "Our brother, 
which art on earth." The two go together. And, therefore, 
we have the perfectly clear moral suasion of Gospel truth for 
the drunkard, and we have legal suasion, backed up by the 



46 Present Duty, 

policeman's baton, for the drunkard's liquor. That is why we 
come to you to-day. 

Man is a living combination of atoms — a miracle of creation — 
but there is within him, enshrined somewhere, a ray of the 
Creator's beauty and of the Creator's mind. Man is to be saved 
from his degradation by calling into operation that living 
power — by bringing before him and making him realize that 
hope which he can find through Christ. But I also believe in 
the great responsibility of the State. I believe the State is, in 
a certain sense, the father of the people. I believe that if the 
State degrades the people the State will suffer in consequence. 
It is for you to say that these things of which we complain shall 
not be. It is the duty of the State to prevent the monstrous 
growth of this public evil, and it is for you as voters to insure 
by your votes speedy reform. We are only just beginning the 
battle. How many people are fast asleep in this movement ? 
It is your duty to make people say that their very profession as 
members of churches calls upon them to believe in the solidar- 
ity of the race, and that if it is not poured out for their brethren, 
their religion is simply a falsehood from beginning to end. 
There is no evil in the country which is to be compared with this 
great national cancer, which is draining the life-blood from every 
part of it. To mention the drink traffic is to give the source of 
nine-tenths of the idiocy and crime and all those other blots of 
our national life. But the churches are not awake. The drink 
traffic is a standing insult to the morality of the nation ; it is a 
standing hindrance to the spread of the Gospel of Christ ; it is 
a standing curse upon the commercial prosperity of the race. 
Not one word that any one can say of it is too strong to utter. 

We do not want to be told any more about the traffic being 
worse than "the accumulated evils of war, pestilence, and 
famine." We want a short, cogent, powerful act from the Gov- 
ernment giving the people the power to say whether they will 
or will not have drink-shops. How can the liquor traffic oppose 
such a measure as that ? They are always saying that their 
houses only exist for the convenience of the public. Ask the 
public whether they want them. We trust the people and we 
want to see a government of the people, for the people, by the 
people ; and if they do not make a clean sweep of the liquor 
traffic, I am very much mistaken in the minds of the people. 



f Pulverize the Rum Power, 47 

PULVERIZE THE RUM POWER. 

BY PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 

In every contest in which a great moral question is involved, 
it seems to be a favorite method of the party which has the 
weaker side of the abstract question itself, to confuse the minds 
of the masses by placing the issue in a false light. The cuttle- 
fish, on being attacked, ejects the contents of its ink-bag, thus 
beclouding the waters and rendering escape possible. The cry 
of "personal liberty" is as useful to the supporters of the rum 
traffic as is the bag of ink to the cuttle-fish. It serves to darken 
the real point of attack, and confuse public opinion. 

It is a question involved in this issue of " personal liberty," 
whether a man is not a public enemy who keeps open, day and 
night, a resort which becomes the gathering-place for the vicious 
arid dangerous elements of society, whose sole occupation it is 
to sell to them, as long as they can beg, borrow, or steal the 
money, his vile decoctions, which cannot fail to render these 
persons still more vicious aud dangerous to the peace and wel- 
fare of the community. The question comes up whether the 
community has not a right to guard itself against such a mani- 
fest danger. 

When the question of personal liberty comes up, the point 
to be considered is not the liberty of the one man to drink and 
of the other to sell, but the right of these men to bring misery 
upon others. In this case, as in all others, the duty of the State 
is to so legislate as to do the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber. Now, the only men who are benefited by the rum traffic 
are the dealers and manufacturers; the drinker is ruined in 
mind, body, and soul, and his family is reduced to penury and 
want. For every rumseller there are at least one hundred drink- 
ers ; and it is certainly a low estimate to say that each drinker 
has an influence upon the lives of at least two other persons — it 
may be wife and child, it may be a dependent father and mother, 
it may be a sister or younger brother. From this it seems that 
while the rum traffic is a profit to one person, viz., the saloon- 
ist, it injures three hundred other people. What shall our 
law-makers do — legislate in favor of the one, or in favor of the 
three hundred ? 

The " personal liberty " cry is the mere resource of the dema- 



48 Am I my Brother's Keeper'^ | 

gogue. It is his intention merely to confuse the real issue in 
the minds of the voting population. The highest liberty is the 
liberty of doing right. The rum traffic is all wrong. There is 
not one shadow of real excuse for its existence. It is a traffic 
which depends entirely upon the frailties and follies of hu- 
manity. It is evil in itself, and its results are evil. There is 
but one thing to do with it, and that is to crush it out. Let 
not the senseless iteration of the " personal liberty " plea, or of 
any other makeshift argument, deter any honest citizen from 
aiding with both voice and vote to Pulverize the Rum Power ! 



AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER? 

BY HON. WILLIAM E. DODGE. 

Why are we assembled here to-day ? Is it in view of the ap- 
proach of some epidemic ? Is the cholera just upon us, and 
have we met here to-day to consult as to what measures may be 
taken to stay the progress of the dire plague } No, sir ; we are 
met here in view of a widespread evil more to be dreaded than 
the cholera or any other plague. More die in a single year 
from the influence of intoxicating drinks than all who have 
perished from cholera since the year 1832, when it first visited 
our land. If we had met here to consult as to staying the prog- 
ress of cholera, what would be said to one who should stand 
up and declare that he had a panacea that he could present as 
a remedy to stay the progress of this scourge? But, we are 
here, sir, in view of this terrible evil, to present to this audi- 
ence a panacea as sure and certain as that the individual who 
shall take it, abide by its instructions, and follow the directions 
given for its use will be benefited. 

We are here to contemplate the fact that there are sixty 
thousand persons going annually to drunkards' graves. Mr. 
President, I fully indorse this — not that all die admitted 
drunkards, but they die premature deaths from disease superin- 
duced by the use of intoxicating drinks. The friends and the 
physician know what was the cause, but report says " heart dis- 
ease," *' dropsy," or "apoplexy," while tens of thousands die 
absolute drunkards. We talk of sixty thousand ! The last few 
years have taught us numericals as we have never understood 



Am I my Brother* s Keeper? 49 

them before. Sixty thousand ! Can we comprehend it ? Never, 
until those years of war, has there been an army of sixty thou- 
sand collected in our land. Some of us stood on the avenue 
^ years ago, and for long hours witnessed the long columns of our 
returning noble veterans, as they passed in review. But, as we 
stood there, could we have realized, as we looked upon their 
faces, that they were all marching to drunkards' graves, with 
what terrible anxiety would we have viewed them ! But, sir, if, 
when that mighty army of sixty thousand had passed down to 
drunkards' graves we could feel that that was the end of the 
procession, it would not be so terrible. But, as the next year 
looms up in the distance, we behold the onward march of sixty 
thousand more coming from those licensed places for recruiting 
drunkards — the hotels and saloons. I wish 1 could stop here, 
but they come not only from the saloons, hotels, and drinking 
shops, but they come enlisted from the dining-tables of the dis- 
tinguished men of our land, where temptation is set before 
them because it is fashionable, and where they drink because it 
is unfashionable not to drink — they come from where parties 
assemble, where the punch-bowl is seen, where intoxicating 
drinks circulate amid our wives, our mothers, sisters, and 
friends, and where temptation meets the man who enters that 
house with the determination not to drink ; where the young 
and lovely female reaches out the tempting glass, and there 
is not moral courage to resist, and so he enlists and makes one 
of that mighty coming throng. I say nothing here of the habit 
as it fastens itself, in such circumstances, on many a lovely 
woman. Facts could be given which would startle those who 
thus set temptation in the pathway of the unsuspecting. 

I said, sir, we had a panacea. It is nothing more or less than 
to sig:n the pledge and stop drinking. 

When we offer this panacea, we ought not to be called fanatics. 
We are not fanatics. We offer a simple, philosophic remedy 
for the most terrible calamity and disease. How simple. The 
patient has not the cholera, yellow fever, or consumption, but 
he has a habit of using stimulating drinks. We ar not fanatics, 
although no man can take the Bible in his hand and say to me 
that per se it is sin for me to drink wine. Yet he can take that 
Bible and show most conclusively that there may be circum- 
stances under which it would be sin for me to drink. If my brother 
had been addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks, and was 



50 No Surrender ! No Compromise! 

manfully struggling to resist the appetite which none but they 
who have acquired it know, should I drink my wine in his pres- 
ence, put it on my table and ask him to drink, and he should be 
overcome, and die a drunkard, God would call me to account for 
my brother's blood. And who is my brother ? God tells us 
who. Our neighbors — all over whom we have influence — are 
oyr brothers, and when we set on our table the deadly cup, and 
put it to our neighbors' lips, we are doing that which, perchance, 
will lead some struggling brother to go down to a drunkard's 
grave, to meet us at the Judgment and charge us with his ruin. 
And now comes in the power of sympathy and example, which 
is the grand foundation of every temperance organization. It 
is simply the Bible principle which we should endeavor to fol- 
low — self-sacrifice for the good of others. Paul said : " It is 
neither good to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything which 
shall cause my brother to stumble or to fall. If meat make my 
brother to offend, I will eat no more meat while the world 
stands, lest I make my brother to offend." That is the doctrine. 



NO SURRENDER! NO COMPROMISE! 

BY J. O. PECK, D,D. 

It is a fact that ninety-nine per cent, of all the genuine tem- 
perance work, in educating the public sentiment, in securing 
sobriety in the youth of the land, in reforming the intemperate, 
and in creating sound legislative enactments, that has been 
done for the past forty years, and that is being done to-day, is 
the work cf the friends of total abstinence : 

'* They may laugh at her name, 
They may blazon her shame, 
But there's life in the old tree yet.'* 

Total abstinence and prohibition have carried our cause to the 
high-water mark of the hour. We will not repudiate them ; we 
will not permit the enemy to suggest new methods, to invent 
tactics for us, or to clandestinely capture and spike our guns. 
When the foe proposes compromise, when dealers and drinkers 
get up a temperance society, keep your mind on the wooden 
horse of the Greeks and keep the walls of the city intact. " Be- 



No Surrender! No Compromise! 51 

ware the Greeks bearing presents." To entrust the Roman 
Empire to Cataline's band of traitors is madness ! The ** Old 
Guard " of the temperance cause know how to die, but not how to 
surrender. When the devil joins the church it is a symptom of 
serious illness. Strategy has supplanted open battle. ** Put 
none but Americans on guard.'" We have fought too long and 
liard, and have gained too great vantage-ground, to think of com- 
promise with a scared enemy. We have nothing to gain and 
everything to lose by an armistice. We have aroused public 
opinion ; we have aroused the Church as never before ; we have 
created a powerful temperance literature; we have been rein- 
forced by the artillery of science ; we have won to our side the 
majesty of law ; we have enlisted the prayers and purpose, pa- 
tience and persistence, of legions of Christian women ; we have 
been cheered by the signal benedictions of God, and compro- 
mise or surrender of total abstinence and prohibition would be 
shameless treason. 

No moral question is ever finally settled until settled in har- 
mony with the principles of uncompromising truth and justice 
and righteousness : 

" For right is right, since God is God, 
And right our cause shall win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty. 
To falter would be sin.*' 

God thunders against all compromise with evil, and foretells 
certain defeat : " And your covenant with death shall be dis- 
annulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand when 
the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then shall ye be 
trodden down by it." The least compromise with evil is moral 
treason to God. Our only business is to fight evil with relent- 
less purpose. Half-and-half men cannot be relied on. Sandy 
was a jolly Scotchman and great dancer. Converted, he joined 
the Church and quit dancing. One day on the street the bag- 
pipes came by, playing shrill and loud the Highland Fling. 
Sandy began to dance wildly with one foot, keeping the other 
fixed on the sidewalk. "Mon," said a bystander, ''are ye 
lame ? " " Nae ! nae ! but one fut belongs to the Church, while 
the ither is wild as the de'il." We want men to stand square 
on both feet for total abstinence, and to resist the sorcery of the 
bagpipes when they play champagne suppers or a bottle of wine 



52 The Drunkards' Army, 

at dinner. But didn't Paul advise Timothy to take ''a little 
wine"? Yes. Hear it: "Drink no longer water, but use a little 
wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." Ah ! 
here is the proof that Timothy was a teetotaler, a cold-water 
man, so radical and abstemious that, amid manifold infirmities, 
Paul has to plead with him to try it as a medicine. If he had 
not been a total abstainer Paul would not have been obliged to 
urge him to change his habits. Oh ! for a generation of cold- 
water men like Timothy, that nothing short of revelation from 
God by an inspired apostle could induce to touch wine even as 
a medicine ! And there is not a hint that Timothy ever touched 
it even then. But didn't Christ make wine at Cana } Yes. 
Then may we not drink it ? Yes, when Almighty God makes it 
for you, by a miracle, out of water. Therefore, by logic of facts 
glanced at, in experience, science, in Scripture, in safety to the 
young, in non-complicity with the gigantic evil in any form, we 
salute our loyal banner with cheers, and keep it flying over the 
citadel of total abstinence, bearing our brave legend, " No sur- 
render ! No compromise ! " 



THE DRUNKARDS^ ARMY. 

BY HON. HENRY WILSON. 

The great work upon which we have entered is a personal 
reform — a social warfare. Its battles will be bloodless, its vic- 
tories will be tearless ; but the contest is a fearful one, for it is 
a struggle with the vitiated appetites of our fallen nature— ap- 
petites that have left scars deeply furrowed on the face of 
humanity. In all the ages, among all the nations, drunkenness 
has conquered the mightiest intellects, the bravest hearts, and 
the noblest natures. Soldiers who have led their conquering 
legions over fields of victory, statesmen who have swayed the 
destinies of nations, philosophers who have stamp'^.d the impress 
of their genius upon the ages, orators who have held listening 
Senates in rapt admiration, scholars who have led under con- 
tribution the vast domains of matter and of mind, have been 
the victims of intemperance. 

It is estimated that in our own country, in this age of light 
and of knowledge, in this land with fifty thousand churches and 



The Drunkards' Army, 53 

fifty thousand ministers of the Hving God, we have an army of 
five hundred thousand drunkards ; that sixty thousand of this 
army annually sink into drunkards' graves ; that its ranks are 
kept filled by drafts upon the vast reserves of moderate drink- 
ers. An army of half a million drunkards in Christian America ! 
Every annual circuit of the sun sixty thousand new-made drunk- 
ards' graves ! The perishing ranks of drunkenness recruited and 
crowded by merciless drafts upon the manhood of the nation ! 
How fearful is the thought! How appalling the spectacle! 
Look at that army as it staggers on to annihilation. You see 
no mighty columns of heroes marching on with radiant banners, 
glad music, and glittering steel, to victory and to glory ; but a 
multitudinous throng, broken, disordered, spiritless, tramping 
on to their doom, with the cries of fathers, mothers, brothers, 
sisters, wives, children, ringing in their ears. All ages and 
conditions are there — youth prematurely blighted ; manhood 
broken, hopeless ; age bending beneath the burdens of name- 
less sorrows ; the generous, the noble, men of heart, of mind, 
and of soul, struggling in the grasp of drunkenness like giants 
in chains ; but their feet ever glide onward and downward. 
God pity that throng of scarred, perishing, vanishing humanity. 
It is our purpose, ladies and gentlemen, to hold ourselves 
back from this great army of drunkards — from this vast throng 
of moderate drinkers, upon whom drunkenness makes its an- 
nual drafts. It is our purpose, too, with the smile of God, to 
rescue the perishing drunkard and save the moderate drinker. 
We indulge the hope that, by the blessing of Almighty God, you 
will contribute something to this holy purpose, to rescue the 
fallen and save the falling. Let us ever remember that strength 
comes from striving; that, in striving to rescue our fallen 
brothers, and to save our falling brothers from impending ruin 
we may keep our own steps from gliding downwards. Ever 
watching, and ever striving, when life's labors are done, our 
bodies may return to our mother earth unscarred, and our spir- 
its to God, who gave them, unstained by drunkenness. 



54 The Waterloo of the Liquor Traffic, 



THE WATERLOO OF THE LIQUOR 
TRAFFIC. 

BY MRS. MARY T. LATHRAP. 

It is said that when the decisive hour in the battle of Water- 
loo was near, the English troops were lying on the ground in 
columns four deep under the very giins of the enemy. The 
command had been given to wait until the French were close 
upon them before opening fire. During the moments of awful 
suspense Wellington rode up and down the lines repeating over 
and over, in tones of excitement : '' What will England say to 
you if you falter now } What will England say to you if you 
falter now?*' An old officer made the statement that he re- 
peated it thousands of times. Anyway, the question was burned 
into the waiting, silent ranks, until they felt as if they were 
lying under the walls of Parliament, and when the order rang 
out, " Now up and at them ! *' each soldier felt the honor of 
England was in his hands and his spirit was simply invincible. 

The Waterloo of the liquor traffic is a field in State and Na- 
tion ; the contest is begun, but is not finished ; the decisive 
hour waits a little farther on, and we are of the silent ranks who 
may meet a sterner shock of battle than has yet been. What 
will the world say to us if we falter now } What will the Christ 
of the world say to us if we falter now } I would like to repeat 
it over and over, until I feel and you feel that we sit under the 
light of the judgment-seat with its glow upon the decisions we 
make. 

They are short-sighted indeed who underestimate the grav- 
ity of this hour. Truths insisted upon for a century have taken 
root in the consciences of men and women. The wrongs and 
sorrows which result from the legalized liquor traffic, grow too 
bitter for long endurance. The dangers that thicken about our 
free institutions become more alarming every year. Meanwhile 
the liquor oligarchy increases its impudent demands ; intimi- 
dates or buys its political servants ; threatens or murders its 
moral and political opposers. The pitiful truce of compromise 
to secure a false, transient peace cannot last. Righteousness 
abides. Truth is abroad. Conscience is awake. God is on the 
throne. And the liquor traffic is going down. 



Sober Men only should Govern the Ship of State. 55 

SOBER MEN ONLY SHOULD GOVERN THE 
* SHIP OF STATE. 

BY HON. RICHARD YATES. 

I WOULD say to the young man that grandeur of human char- 
acter does not consist of transcendent genius alone. It does 
not belong alone to the statesman beneath whose eloquence 
listening Senates sit enraptured ; it does not belong alone to 
the warrior who bears his proud, unconquered banner over 
every field ; but it does consist in force of character, in force of 
soul, feeling, thought, and purpose. Caesar v/as a weak man 
when he sacrificed the liberties of Rome by suffering Marc An- 
tony to put the crown upon his head. Washington v/ould not 
have been great if he had yielded to the temptations of his 
willing arm.y and accepted a crown at the expense of the liber- 
ties of his country. That man is only great who seeks right 
and truth and justice, and adheres to them with strong, vigor- 
ous, and perpetual purpose. 

The man who is to legislate for a great country, to help make 
laws and constitutions involving the destinies of millions of 
human beings, ought to be a man of reflection, moral principle, 
integrity, and, above all, a sober man. Go into your legislative 
halls, State and national, and behold the drunkard staggering 
to his seat or sleeping at his post, and ask yourself the question 
whether he is not more fit to be called a monument of his 
country's shame than the representative of freemen. Would it 
not be most fearful to contemplate that ill-fated epoch in the 
history of our country when the demon of intemperance shall 
come into our legislative halls without shame, remorse, or re- 
buke; when he shall sit upon juries, upon the bench, and 
drunkenness run riot among the people } Who, then, will pro- 
tect the ship of State upon this maddening tide ; who will steer 
her in her onward course amid the dashing billows ; who spread 
her starry flag to the free, fresh, wild winds of heaven ? 

Watchman, what of the night? We have been engaged in a 
mighty revolution. Your army and navy have carried your 
arms under Grant and Banks against the Gibraltars of the Mis- 
sissippi, and opened that stream from its source to its mouth. 
Under the gallant Joe Hooker your troops scaled the heights, 
and above the clouds unfurled to the sun the glorious flag of 



56 Sober Men only should Govern the Ship of State. 

the stars. Sherman marches from Cairo to the sea, while Grant 
marches through the Wilderness to the Confederate capital. 
The rebellion is crushed. Behold ! a whole race set free— the 
shackles of the ages are broken, and we see full-high advanced 
the standard of the nation's redemption. Hark ! dinna ye hear 
the pibroch of the Highlanders, and borne upon the wings of 
the wind the slogan shout of universal emancipation ? 

And, now, shall this nation, *' Columbia, queen of the world 
and child of the skies," pause in her efforts when there is an 
enemy in our land more destructive than war, pestilence, and 
famine combined, which sends annually one hundred thousand 
men to untimely graves, makes fifty thousand widows and three 
hundred thousand wives worse than widows — filling our prisons, 
our poorhouses, our lunatic asylums, and swelling to an untold 
extent the great ocean of human misery, wretchedness, and 
woe? 

Mr. President, if old King Alcohol were dead and buried, as 
he ought to be, beyond the power of resurrection, this nation 
could bear our national debt like a young Hercules. Then, sir, 
two blades of grass would grow where one now grows, and un- 
bounded wealth, imperial power, and proud position would be 
the heritage of the nation forever. 

But some say this temperance business is fanaticism — it*s a 
gloomy sort of life. There never was a greater mistake. Tem- 
perance is one of the sweetest and most delightful things upon 
earth ; it is the very spring-head of cheerfulness, happiness, and 
joy — ^the very chivalry of manhood itself. Temperance gloomy ? 
Not a bit of it, Mr. President. My pledge shall be a perpetual 
charm — " a thing of beauty which is a joy forever " — not a cloud 
of gloom, but an ever-present rainbow of promise, hope, and 
beauty. 

We will push forward the temperance column, move upon 
the enemy's works, and give him canister and Greek fire. We 
will storm upon the citadel of intemperance until it shall crum- 
ble and totter and fall to the earth. 



Awake! Rouse Ye! 57 

AWAKE! ROUSE YE! 

BY BISHOP R. S. FOSTER. 

For a generation Christendom has been hearing a low growl 
from the kennel, where she is battening the wild beasts of 
passion ; a growl in the kennel as they have crunched their 
victims. " What means the roar to-day along Trafalgar Square 
and London streets ? " It is the beast, loose and shaking his 
mane. Pamper him a little more on Government joints, and 
no kennel bars will hold him. Fitted for raven, he will raven 
to the full. Rum engenders poverty ; poverty and rum en- 
gender crime. From the Government rum-shop, the wild beast 
hunts his prey. Is Christendom struck with judicial blindness, 
that she sleeps } Are her eyes holden, that she cannot see ? 
There are armies marching and counter-marching, with ban- 
ners on which are emblazoned dynamite, anarchism, commun- 
ism, nihilism, labor-league, no Sabbath, down with the Church 
and State, recruited from the dram-shop and officered from the 
kennel. Are we so deaf that we do not hear the tramp of the 
gathering legions ? Nations that license murder for pay will 
be murdered for plunder ; nations that batten the wild beast of 
passion will be devoured by the wild beasts of rapine and ruin. 
The rum-hole must be closed, or the rum hell will engulf Chris- 
tendom. What shall be done with Christian rum, is in the prob- 
lem. What shall become of the Christian world 1 Answer it 
with license, or authorization, or tempering policies, is it diffi- 
cult to see the end ? Strike it down, cage the beasts that vend 
the frenzy in the only place to which they belong, the criminal 
cell, and the kennel will disperse. There is but one remedy. 
We have had experience enough to have learned what that is. 
The nation must put an end to transforming men into beasts by 
law, and must put the beasts who do it into a limbo where 
their sorceries will cease. The conflict is now upon us. It is a 
life-and-death struggle. The Government is on the side of the 
beasts ; the people make the Government. Shall the rum fiend 
still carry on his carnival of death ? Shall the rum minions, at 
the still, behind the bar, at the bar, in the gutter, or in the man- 
sion, rule } Or is there enough of manhood among us to save 
Christendom from the damning shame } The answer we make 
to that question determines fate. If Christianity has not power 



S8 Awake I Rouse Ye! 

to save Christendom, where is our hope ? With what face, 
then, can we go to the heathen ? There is no devil-worshipper 
in Africa more degraded, more lost to all sense of shame, than 
the demon worshipper of rum ; no high-priest of the sorceries 
of heathenism more diabolized than the minions of Christian 
States authorized to manufacture and vend the poison. Pa- 
ganism can muster no miscreants from all her realms more de- 
based than the rum army ; no festering pest-house — not even 
the Chinese opium den — more deadly to virtue than the Chris- 
tian rum-hole. Must it be endured longer? 

Who doubts that there is a remedy for this state of things? 
It is not unknown. The evil is rampant, not of necessity, but 
because we have not the courage or the desire to apply the 
remedy. It is simply needed that right-minded people combine 
to do the work ; and in this, as in every case of a crying evil, 
the Church must lead in the reform. 

It cannot be effected by moral suasion, by sermons, by prayers, 
or by abstinence of the well-disposed. It is a case where the 
arm of the law and force repressive is the only resort. It be- 
longs to the department of crimes ; and must, of necessity, be 
met by criminal law faithfully executed. The rumseller is a 
criminal, and must be held amenable to criminal law. 

The traffic must cease to be treated as a question of rights 
and liberty of individual choice, as the pursuit of a legitimate 
calling, as much so as theft, or murder, or any other crime. It 
belongs to the same category and nothing but sophistry can 
give it any other place. 

A sentiment must be vocalized into organic expression which 
will compel legislation. The sentiment exists. It must be 
expressed in the only effectual way, until a rumseller will no 
more dare to open his house of death among us than would a 
dealer in deadly pestilence ; until he must, like other miscreants 
— of which there are none greater — hide himself in the dens 
and caverns of night from the vengeance of hot pursuit. Brand 
felon on his brow; huddle him with co-fellows in the crim- 
inal's dock ; drive him with the gang in striped garments. The 
business will then cease, and the earth will be delivered from 
his devilish sorceries. No man in his senses can say that there 
is any other remedy, or that this is too severe. All that is de- 
manded is concert of action. It will come. It is at the door. 
There are men enough not hopelessly debauched to vote such 



**/ have Drank 7ny last Glass,** 59 

laws. They will yet unite and rid the earth of this foul mon- 
ster. It lives, not because it cannot be put to death, but because 
we have not the will to strangle it. Let Christendom arouse, 
and in a single day of brave work the land will be freed of this 
vilest gang of criminals that have ever cursed it, and the prisons 
will empty, and the slums will dry up, and the vicious classes 
will vanish, and the miseries of poverty and wretchedness will 
cease. If a Christian nation so will, it can be done in one day. 
If we will not, the Moloch will devour our homes and our 
children. 



"I HAVE DRANK MY LAST GLASS." 

BY LOUISA S. UPHAM. 

No, comrades, I thank you— not any for me ; 
My last chain is riven — henceforward I'm free ! 
I will go to my home and my children to-night 
With no fumes of liquor their spirits to blight ; 
And with tears in my eyes I will beg my poor wife 
To forgive me the wreck I have made of her life ! 
* I have never refused you before 1 " Let that pass, 

For I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 

Just look at me now, boys, in rags and disgrace, 

With my bleared, haggard eyes, and my red, bloated face ! 

My faltering step, and my weak palsied hand, 

And the mark on my brow that is worse than Cain's brand, 

My crownless old hat, and my elbows and knees — 

Alike v/armed by the sunshine or chilled by the breeze. 

Why, even the children v>^ill hoot as I pass ; 

But I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 

You would hardly believe, boys, to look at me now, 

That a mother's soft hand once was pressed on my brov;' — 

When she kissed me, and blessed me, her darling, her pride. 

Ere she lay down to rest by my dead father's side ; 

But with love in her eyes, she looked up to the sky. 

Bidding me meet her there, and then whispered, "Good-bye." 

And I'll do it, God helping ! Your smile I let pass, 

For I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 



6o *^/ have Drank my last Glass'' 

A§ I reeled home last night — it was not very late. 

For Fd spent my last sixpence, and landlords won't wait 

On a fellow who's left every cent in their till, 

And has pawned his last bedding, their coffers to fill. 

Oh, the torments I felt, and the pangs I endured ! 

And I begged for one glass — thinking one would have cured, 

But when kicked out of doors ! I let that, too, pass ; 

But I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 

At home, my pet Susie, with bright golden hair, 

I saw through the window, just kneeling in prayer. 

From her pale, bony hands her torn sleeves were strung down, 

While her feet, cold and bare, shrank beneath her scant gown ; 

And she prayed — prayed in vain, just a poor crust of bread, 

For one crust — on her knees my pet darling plead ! 

And I heard, with no penny to buy one, alas ! 

But I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 

For Susie, my darling, my wee six-year-old. 

Though fainting with hunger and shiv'ring with cold, 

There, on the bare floor, asked God to bless me ! 

And she said, ''Don't cry, mamma ! He will ! for you see 

I believe what I ask for ! " Then sobered, I crept 

Away from the house ; and that night when I slept. 

Next my heart lay the Pledge ! You may smile ; let it pass ; 

For I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 

My darling child saved me ! Her faith and her love 

Are akin to my dear sainted mother above ! 

I will make her words true, or I'll die in the race. 

And sober I'll go to my last resting-place ; 

And she shall kneel there, and weeping, thank God 

No drunkard lies under the daisy-strewn sod. 

Not a drop more of poison my lips shall e'er pass, 

For I've drank my last glass, boys, 

I have drank my last glass. 



The Brotherhood of Man, 6i 

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 

BY HON. F. E. WOODBRIDGE. 

Man is a splendid creature. God thought so when He created 
him. God thought so when He gave His only and^vell-beloved 
Son — our blessed Saviour — to die for him. The earth, with its 
magnificence of beauty — the heavens, with their indescribable 
glories, were made for man, and when God breathed into the 
nostrils of His image His own breath of life, everything was so 
perfect and glorious that the morning stars sang together for 
joy. 

The sun, as it walks in majesty through the heavens, gives 
light, and heat, and life^the little violet at our feet, which tells 
that spring-time and the singing of birds is coming — the stars, 
as they dazzle and sparkle in the sky, and the little fire-fly, as 
it lights up the swamps at night, were all made for the benefit 
and comfort of man. How great, then, is the dignity of man- 
hood, and how fearful are its responsibilities ! Whatever 
thought, whatever act, whatever purpose, whatever habit de- 
tracts from that dignity is wrong. Whatever course of action 
fails to meet those high responsibilities is also wrong. 

Hence the propriety, and even the necessity of temperance, 
and hence, also, the duty of action, vigorous, kindly, loving 
effort to raise up those who have yielded to temptation, and to 
prevent the young man from falling into the fatal snare. 

Young man, you feel that you are safe. Perhaps you have 
never been intoxicated. You only take a social glass with your 
genial friends — all of them gentlemanly and upright young 
men — after the labors of the day are over. Many a young man, 
with a mind as well poised, with as much self-control, with as 
gentlemanly habits and purpose of thought and action as you 
now have, have been in the same position. Where are they 
now ? Gone to an untimely and dishonored grave, leaving be- 
hind them blasted hopes, sad memories, and broken hearts. 

Men are creatures of habit. " Excess of appetite doth grow 
by what it feeds on." You know and I know that, as a general 
rule, the habit creeps upon one with an insidious, noiseless 
tread. He that takes a glass to-day must take two to-morrow, 
and then three, and four, and five, and six, and ere he knows it 
the serpent's coil is about him, and he becomes the almost 
hopeless and despairing victim of intemperance. 



62 The Brotherhood of Man. 

Then, why put yourself in this danger ? You do not require 
the stimulant now. You are in the midst of your manly pride 
and strength. Then taste not, touch not, handle not, lest by 
and by it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. 

It is sometimes said that it is almost useless to endeavor to 
reform the confirmed inebriate, and that our efforts must be de- 
voted to the prevention rather than the cure. I do not think 
so. Men's hearts seem to be hardened against the unfortunate 
victim of this inexorable habit. They are apt to say, "Oh, he 
is a miserable drunkard. Let him go." Sir, that man may 
once have been as good as you or I, and saving that unfor- 
tunate habit he may, in the eye of God, who sees not as men 
see, be as good or better than you or I to-day. When himself, 
he may be good to the poor, kind and loving to his family, 
obedient to the law, respectful to the ordinances of religion. I 
confess, sir, when I see a drunken man my impulse is to go to 
him and kindly lead him to a place of safety. Think a mo- 
ment. He is our brother. God made him. Christ died for 
him and knocks at his heart, as He does at ours, for admission. 
Think again of the wife, who, in the freshness and beauty of 
her early youth, pledged this man her love, and with that fidelity 
which kept woman last at the cross and brought her first at the 
tomb, clings to him now. Think of her prayers, ascending like 
pure incense to her Heavenly Father, that her husband may be 
reclaimed. Think, too, of those little children watching at the 
window, when night has fallen, for the approaching shadow of 
their father, or listening for his footsteps, refusing to leave 
their dear mother until he is in safety. Think, too, of the 
prayers and groans of this unfortunate man, as, in the darkness 
and stillness of midnight, he pleads to be delivered from this 
terrible woe ; and as in the morning he leaves his home, his 
children cover him with kisses, and the face of his wife lights 
up as with an angel's smile, as he promises to drink no more. 
He is honest in that promise, but the tempter comes and he 
falls again. Revile not, upbraid not that poor unfortunate 
man. Rather lift him up with kindness and encouragement 
from the pit into which he has fallen. Show him the dignity 
of his own nature, the beauty of truth, and purity, and sobriety, 
and bid him go and sin no more. If he falls again, and per- 
haps he may, once more put your arms around him, and by and 
by he may become clothed and in his right mind, and be once 



Shall we Fail? 63 

again a man. If there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth, is it not worth while for man to save one soul from 
a drunkard's grave ? The happiness of life is reflex. It comes 
from without and not from within. To do good is to be happy. 
Let us, then, in this and in all things, strive to promote the 
welfare of our brother-man, and then, when kind hands smooth 
for the last time our pillow, as we are about to close our eyes 
forever upon earth, we may say, *' When the eye saw me thus, 
it blessed me. When the ear heard me, it gave witness to me — 
for I delivered the poor that cried ; the fatherless and him that 
had none to help him ; the blessing of him that was ready to 
perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing 
for joy." 



SHALL WE FAIL? 

BY WATSON M. VAUGHAN. 

Soldiers of the Temperance army ! gird yourselves, for the 
conflict is not over. Behold the bar-rooms in our midst. See 
their fiery contents as they stand like some burning volcanoes, 
and we know not at what moment we may be overwhelmed by 
them. Oh, shall we slumber beneath the fires of Vesuvius and 
Etna, and be not alarmed } 

Methinks I hear the cry of fire ! fire ! rolling from the sultry 
belt to either pole. The world is on fire, burning up with the 
liquid fire — more terrific in its march than the Chicago flames ! 
The cold-water army is on its march to extinguish the fire. If 
we succeed, we will proclaim a year of jubilee — the world re- 
deemed from the curse of dissipation. 

** Shout, earth ! shout, heaven ! " 

Then I would want our planet environed with a zodiac of un- 
fading rainbow splendor, and inscribed on it, over either conti- 
nent, in every dialect of earth, in burning characters, the 
golden inscription, " The world is redeemed from the curse of 
dissipation." That all nations may sit beneath the soul-cheer- 
ing ark, and shout and sing the song of that redemption at once 
and forever ! Then the angels that in their flight from world 
to world bend their course to shun this bedlam of the universe, 
will turn out of their way to visit a second Paradise. Then 



64 The Destroyer. 

will the temperance orders bathe our planet in an atmosphere 
of perfume "sweeter than Arabia sacrificed, and the spicy 
mountains in a flame." 

On the other hand, if we are finally overrun with drunken- 
ness, when the vision of the ** black horse " shall appear, then 
will I a^k his ** rider " to release me from the horrid scenes that 
will ensue. The land of inebriates ! the drunkard's planet ! 
Let all nature mourn at the thought. Let the verdure of earth 
be withered, and the continent dressed in black, the ocean 
covered in sackcloth, and the heavens spread with mourning. 
Then let this dark planet be rolled down to the black portals of 
perdition, where men and devils, exchanging visits, may claim 
each other as appropriate neighbors. 

That total abstinence may ever peal in your ear, let my last 
word be, abstain. May the angel, conscience, ever and anon 
whisper in your ear — abstain ; breezes of earth bear it across 
the continent — abstain ; billows of ocean roll it to the distant 
shores — abstain ; heavens above congeal and echo back in 
world-wide thunder tones — abstain ! 



THE DESTROYER. 



BY H. M. SCUDDER, D.D. 



Intemperance creates in man an ungovernable appetite. 
Men who have fallen have told us it is not a desire, not an ap- 
petite, not a passion ; these ordinary words fail to express the 
thing. It is more like a raging storm that pervades the entire 
being ; it is a madness that paralyzes the brain, it is a corrosion 
that gnaws the stomach, it is a storm-fire that courses through 
the veins ; it transgresses every boundary, it fiercely casts aside 
every barrier, it regards no motive, it silences reason, it stifles 
conscience, it tramples upon prudence, it overleaps everything 
that you choose to put in its way, and eternal life and the 
claims of God are as feathers, which it blows out of its path. 

What does it do to man's body? It diseases it ; it crazes his 
brain, it blasts his nerves, it consumes his liver, it destroys his 
stomach, it inflames his heart, it sends a fiery flood of conflagra- 
tion through all the tissues ; it so saps the recuperative ener- 
gies of man's body, that oftentimes a little scratch upon a drunk- 



The Destroyer. 65 

ard's skin is a greater injury than a bayonet-thrust through and 
through the body of a temperate man. It not only does this, 
but the ruin that it brings into the nervous system often cul- 
minates in delirium tremens. Have you ever seen a man under 
its influence? Have you heard him mutter, and jabber, and 
leer, and rave like an idiot? Have you heard him moan, cry, 
shriek, curse, and rave, as he tried to skulk under the bed- 
clothes? Have you looked into his eyes, and seen the horrors 
of the damned there ? Have you witnessed these things ? 
Have you seen the scowl on his face, so that the whole atmos- 
phere was filled with tempest ? Have you seen him heave on 
his bed, as though his body was undulating upon the rolling 
waves like a fire ? If you have, then you know what it does to 
the body. 

It enthralls the will. A man's will ought to be king. The 
will of the drunkard is an abject slave. The noblest and the 
mightiest men have been unable to break off the chain when it 
is once riveted. I verily believe there have been no such wails 
of despair out of hell itself as have gone up from the lips and 
heart of the drunkard who knew he never could be recovered. 
What does it do to the heart ? If a man is made in the im- 
age of God's intellect, a woman is made in the image of God's 
heart. A tender woman is tenderest to her child. Is there 
anything that can unmother a woman, that can pluck the ma- 
ternal heart out of her, and put in its place something that is 
powerful and fiendish ? Is there any other agent on earth, or 
even in the world of the damned, that can so transform a 
mother's heart into something for which thought itself cannot 
find similitude? Satan himself cannot do it ; but rum can. 

It wrecks character. It is a double shipwreck ; the drunkard 
not only loses his own respect, but he loses the respect of every- 
body else. His own character, with its real worthiness and with 
its reputation, is gone, and his worthiness in the estimation of 
other people is gone too— both of them, slain, are buried in one 
grave; and the grave-digger and the murderer, who are they? 
Rum. It wipes out the likeness of God from the soul, and 
makes a man a mixture of the brute and the demon, evolving 
the stupidity of the one and the philosophy of the other ; and 
the Bible tells us that no drunkard shall ever inherit the king- 
dom of God. 



66 Spike that Gun I 

SPIKE THAT GUN! 

The great struggle for victory on the heights of Inkerman 
was decided by a young officer bravely carrying out an order to 
spike a gun that was sweeping down the troops with its shot 
and shell. The battery had to be approached with great care, 
or the attacking party would be swept away before ever the gun 
could be reached. The officer in command led his men under 
the cover of some rising ground, and then waited his oppor- 
tunity to face the battery. At first, a brother officer who ac- 
companied the party said that it was perfect madness to at- 
tempt an attack, and the men began to feel that it was charging 
into the arms of death ; but the officer who had received the 
order to spike the gun was determined to carry it out or die in 
the attempt, and addressing his small party, said : " If no man 
will stand by me, I shall go alone. Who'll volunteer.^" and 
immediately he went out Irom the shelter of the rising ground 
v/here he had halted his men, and faced the battery. No sooner 
did the men see his brave determination to carry out his in- 
structions than they rushed to the front, and with a victorious 
shout took the battery and spiked the gun. That brave deed 
turned the battle scales to victory in favor of the British. The 
Russians lost all heart when the battery, which had done such 
deadly mischief to the troops all that fearful day, was silenced 
and the gun spiked. 

The great conflict between good and evil is still raging. Year 
after year rolls on, and the deadly strife continues. The ranks 
have been thinned, gaps made, homes desolated, families broken 
up, and thousands have passed away. One of the great if not 
the greatest difficulties in the progress of every good work is 
drink. It is one of the most prolific sources of evil that the 
civilized world has seen. It baffles our legislators. It startles 
the Church. It blights the progress of Christianity. It hinders 
the advance of missions. It degrades our army, and is found 
to be the chief agent in supplying pauperdom with starving 
beggars, madhouses with the insane, and orphanages with the 
fatherless. Crime is fed by it; jails, reformatories, and peni- 
tentiaries are crowded with its victims. Men have lost their 
honesty and women their virtue, through the effects of drink. 
Good has been weakened, evil has been strengthened by the 
baneful influence of drink. Whether we speak of high or low, 



The Work in the Home. 67 

the educated or ignorant, the wealthy or poor, from each drink 
has claimed its victims, and scattered seeds of misery in all 
ranks, which have produced a sad harvest of wretchedness, 
woe, and death, sufficient for us to point out the danger in 
v/hich every good work is placed, so long as that infernal 
weapon of evil is belching forth its deadly missiles against 
those enterprises which are making war upon sin, and the enor- 
mous disadvantages at which they war, so long as drink is al- 
lowed to decimate their ranks and destroy their hopes of success. 
For the sake of all that's good and true on earth, we raise the 
cry : Spike that gun ! 



THE WORK IN THE HOME. 

BY MRS. HELEN C. CAMPBELL. 

When our Heavenly Father in His wisdom looked down upon 
suffering humanity, and out of His abundant fullness, to whom 
all things belong, desired to send some gift to the children of 
His hands that should adequately represent His great love for 
them. He sent them a perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And 
when this Son came to earth, and labored and suffered and died, 
and conquered death with a glorious resurrection, what did the 
Father promise as a reward to the Son for His stupendous work 
for humanity? That to Him should be given perfected men as 
a reward, and that at His name every knee should bow and 
every tongue confess that He should be Lord of all. Is there 
an evil in the world that is to detract from this crown of our 
Saviour^s glory } Is there an evil in the world that is to rob 
heaven ? Is there an evil in the world that is to populate the 
place which was created not for man, but the devil and his 
angels? If so, then it appears to me that every one who has 
named the name of Christ is bound by the love of that name to 
do what he can, or what she can, for the putting down of this 
evil. 

Total abstinence is the duty of every Christian regardless of 
sect, regardless of nationality, regardless of party. It is high 
and over and above all the din of party action. 

To the women of this audience I make my appeal. We are not 
called upon to enter into the political arena ; we are not called 
upon to aid our brothers in the enactment of laws or their en- 



68 The Work in the Home. 

forcement in this country, but we are called upon to use our 
influence around the fireside, around the cradle of the dear ones, 
as they nestle around our knees in the twilight and whisper 
their childish petitions in His name. They learn from you 
what is right and what is wrong — for all the children believe 
that what mother says must be true, because mother says so. 

If she is unable to speak in public or lead in prayer, she can 
teach her little children, her little home organization, that wine 
is a mocker, and that God said that no drunkard shall inherit 
the kingdom of Heaven ; that the Lord of Life said : " Look 
not upon the wine when it is red." She can teach them from 
their earliest infancy that alcohol is a poison ; that intemper- 
ance is a sin against God, and all that are engaged in it are to 
stand before God in judgment on that day. Oh, women, don't 
you know the responsibility that rests in your small hands in 
training up the manhood of this land ; that some of you who 
are here to-day are training those who shall vote to bring in 
absolute prohibition for State and nation? You must teach 
them the fundamental principle of total abstinence in the indi- 
vidual ; you must teach them that until we have a nation of 
voters who believe that total abstinence is right, we will never 
have prohibition. And so I beg you, in the sanctity of home, 
with your little flock, begin to teach the Gospel of Jesus and 
the gospel of total abstinence. If it was not a duty enjoined by 
God, and inculcated by His Holy Word, we would not be so 
desperately in earnest ; but in all relations of life we are con- 
vinced of the enormity of the evil, and the necessity of training 
in the home. 

Men and brethren, you have the power to stop the evil. We 
only have power and influence in a weak way to relieve the 
misery, but you can stop it at the fountain-head. 

I am sometimes glad that we women have no vote, because 
we are not partners in this crime. We are doing what we can 
to relieve the misery and bring the voters to our way of think- 
ing, but upon your shoulders rests the responsibility of its con- 
tinuance. Think you that at that day, when you shall all stand 
to give an account of the deeds done in the body, that it will 
be sufficient for a voter to say, " I never voted for a license law, 
I never voted for any measure that brought intemperance " } 
Did you vote to put it down ? I love to think of the story that 
the Master tells of judgment-day when He said, " I was hungry 



While the Sabbath Bells were Ringing. 69 

and ye fed me, naked and ye clothed me, sick and in prison arid 
ye visited me, a stranger and ye took me in. Unless ye did it 
to the least of these, ye have not done it unto me/' And so, 
friends, because we believe that man's chief end is to glorify 
God and enjoy Him forever ; that His Word is the rule of our 
lives ; that no drunkard is to inherit the kingdom of Heaven, 
we beseech you to devote your lives to work along this line 
until we shall abolish intemperance from America and set up 
the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 



WHILE THE SABBATH BELLS WERE 
RINGING. 

BY W. A. EATON. 

The sunshine fell on cottage-roofs and waving cornfields bright, 

And all the world seemed lying still beneath the golden light. 

The cattle stood beside the hedge, the sheep were in the fold, 

The sunlight on the old church-tower lit up the fane of gold. 

And from its nest in the long grass the lark was upward springing, i 

And softly on the evening air the Sabbath bells were ringing. 

The organ-notes rang loud and deep, and sweetly sang the choir, 
While through the colored window-panes the sunlight fell like fire. 
And earnestly the ministep lifted his voice in prayer ; 
The sunshine fell upon his face, and on his snow-white hair. 
And then once more upon the air there came the sound of singing, 
While softly, sweetly over all the Sabbath bells were ringing. 

Within the street of a great town I saw a noisy throng ; 

And there were women wan and pale, and brawny men and strong. 

And they were pressing round the door of a gin-shop warm and 

bright ; 
Within they drank and screamed for more — it was an awful sight. 
And oh ! the din of babbling tongues, and loud, half -drunken singing, 
While far above them, out of sight, the Sabbath bells were ringing. 

And farther on I saw a crowd around two women stand ; 
And one of them, with eyes aflame and blood upon her hand, 
Struck at the other like a fiend and felled her to the ground ; 
And no one tried to interpose of all who stood around. 
She rose and glared upon her foe, like fiend from hell up-springing. 
And this was in a Christian land, while the Sabbath bells were ring- 
ing. 



70 Our Warfare and our Trophies, 

Drunkards go staggering through the town, roaring some ribald song, 
Pushing against the passengers, that quickly pass along ; 
The drink-shop doors swing in and out, and from the crowd within 
There comes a noise of song and shout, of ceaseless roar and din ; 
And shameless people pass our streets, their obscene jests outflinging. 
And all this in a Christian land, while the Sabbath bells were ringing. 

O patriots, rise ! our sinking land groans 'neath the drink-fiend's 
chain. 

How many of us have to mourn o'er friends and brothers slain? 

O Christians ! lolling at your ease in velvet-cushioned pews, 

You say that you can do without the little drink you use ; 

Then give it up for pity's sake, and strive with us to save 

The thousands that go rushing on toward a drunkard's grave. 

Arise and fight in this great strife and tread the monster down 

That now rides rampant through our land in hamlet and in town. 

Then will your prayers effectual prove, your praise like angels* sing- 
ing, 

And God will bless this land we love while the Sabbath bells are 
ringing 



OUR WARFARE AND OUR TROPHIES. 

BY J. C. PRICE, D.D. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, you are aware that this great tem- 
perance prohibition movement is not defined by the narrow 
lines of party. It is a moral fight, and we enter it in that spirit. 
True morality declares that every species of vice must be hated 
because it is vice, and virtue must be loved in all forms because 
it is virtue ; and on that line we wage war with all our hearts. 
If the time were to come again we are ready to fight in defense 
of the right and in defense of morality. But this great temper- 
ance movement was considered at one time of little importance. 
People did not take much interest in it. The nation was long 
indifferent to its ravages, and, like that Athenian youth con- 
cealing the stolen fox, it endeavored to wear a stoical appear- 
ance while this evil was gnawing upon its very vitals. 

Is the use of alcohol wrong ? Why, yes. God has declared 
it with a voice as if it came from smoking Sinai. Its evil effects 
upon man's body and mind cry out against it, and the evil it 
works in the world at large pronounces it the enemy of man- 
kind. 



Our Warfare and our Trophies, 71 

Now, as to moderate drinking, some people think that is a 
very innocent way to encourage temperance. Of course, we can 
see that society has made progress in this direction. There 
was a time when moderate drinking was more common than it 
is now. Then one of the evidences of hospitality when you 
went into the house was to have the decanter and the glass put 
upon the table ; it was fashionable to do so, and if you did not 
you had not extended to a man the courtesies of hospitality. 
But where is the decanter now ? You do not find it on the 
table so often ; they have it in the closet, and if you cannot give 
the password you cannot get it out of the closet. If they can 
understand your position, then you may get at it ; but if you 
don't express yourself you cannot. We have made progress in 
this direction. We have driven the decanter from the table, 
we have driven it to the closet, and may God help us to drive it 
to the sewerage. 

Moderate drinking is the dropping that makes up the ocean 
of drunkards ; moderate drinking is the sand-grain that makes 
up the mountain of his misery ; moderate drinking is the be- 
ginning of the descent down the steep steps of utter degrada- 
tion, ruin, and loss. How is it about habitual drunkenness ? 
Why, no one denies its effect ; no one denies what it has done. 
Look at the wrecks of men who walk up and down your streets, 
and that tells the story. Look at the young men into whose 
veins this poison has been infused, and which aims at the cita- 
del of life, and you will see the effect of this evil without any 
argument. People talk of grim war ; why, war with all its hor- 
rors, gaunt famine, and the terrible pestilence have slain their 
millions, but the cup of intemperance which the nation has 
drank until the dregs have run out, it is slaying its tens of mill- 
ions. And yet, because certain men do not stand still, because 
they appear to be interested in this subject, they are stamped 
as fanatics. Because men will not stand quietly by and see 
their fellow-men go down to ruin and see innocent women and 
children suffer and die they are branded as wild fanatics. If it 
is fanaticism to go and take a brother by the hand and lift him 
up, if it is fanaticism to send all over this country excellent lit- 
erature to save the lost and the erring, then let me be a fanatic 
forever. Could you, with the poet, go to that cell where mad- 
ness clanks its chains — 



72 Our Duty and Responsibility. 

** With demon eye looks wild 
And tells the saddest truth on earth, 
That lofty man has fallen below the brute," — 

could you look at those eyes that were once filled with intel- 
lectual light; could you look at those lips quivering with mad- 
ness, that were once filled with eloquence ; could you look at 
the whole man, intellect dethroned and he stripped of every- 
thing pure, and not be moved ? I do not believe that God 
wants honorable men and women to stand still w^hen they see 
such a spectacle before them. 

We come up as those who have been engaged in a bitter con- 
flict, bearing upon our banners the evidence of the struggle, 
and yet we should rejoice in the victories gained. Our warfare 
has been different from that of ordinary warfare ; our sword has 
not been one of Damascus steel. The land has not been cov- 
ered with the dying ; the country has not been crimsoned with 
human gore ; we have not flooded the land with the best blood 
of the nation. But our warfare has been in rescuing the lost, 
in saving those who were standing upon the verge of destruc- 
tion. While we may not have the triumphal arch, while we 
may not rejoice in gold and silver trophies, yet every man and 
woman does rejoice, because through temperance and total ab- 
stinence many a man has been led to the cross ; and as we look 
at hundreds of them clinging to that cross we are satisfied that 
that is our arch of triumph, and those clinging men and women 
are our trophies. 

OUR DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 

BY HON, HIRAM PRICE. 

Have you ever thought — of course you have, for you are 
thinking people — that ever since the day Adam was turned out 
of Eden down to this present good hour there have never been 
but three classes of men on this subject of temperance ? One 
is total abstinence men and women, who do not drink anything 
intoxicating, who will neither make, buy, nor sell, any wine, 
cider, or malt liquors. There is another class of very respectable 
people who are moderate drinkers and favor moderate drinking. 
I am not saying they are bad men in every respect ; they are 
bad in that. I do not care how good a man is ; you may take 
the best men that ever lived since Paul preached on Mars Hill, 



Our Duty and Responsibility, 73 

talking to the good sense of the Athenians, if he was a drink- 
ing man he would be a better man if he did not use intoxicat- 
ing liquor. Do you dispute tliat ? There is still another class ; 
and who are they ? They are poor, miserable drunkards, men 
who cannot control themselves ; and there are sixty thousand 
of them at the lowest estimate in this country to-day. They 
march in solid phalanx, shoulder to shoulder and eye to eye, 
over the banks of time down into the vortex of eternity just as 
certainly as that the sun rises in the morning. You know it, 
and every man and woman knows the fact who wants to know 
it. Just think of it, sixty thousand of our fellow-citizens, men 
and women of the United States of America, the grandest 
country on the globe, that are going down to death and de- 
struction every year ! If you will look at the forefront of that 
advancing column you will see that, as they topple over the 
boundaries of time into the vortex of eternity, if there were no 
recruits in this army when the rear ranks fell over there would 
be no more drunkards. You know that without my telling you, 
for your common sense tells you that is the fact. Put the moder- 
ate drinkers into the ranks of the total abstinence men and this 
world would be rid of the sin and curse of drunkenness before 
another decade. 

I want to say to you, my friends, that when we fail to do all 
we can in the temperance cause, we have fallen far short of our 
duty. The venomous serpent of intoxicating liquor can do its 
deadly work in the kitchen, the dining-room, and the drawing- 
room. We must be total abstainers if ever we expect to see 
the sun of total abstinence chase away the fogs and distress 
and misery that are brought upon us by the curse of intemper- 
ance. You know that. You cannot do everything, you say. 
Of course not, but do what you can. 

And such a land and such a country to work in ! Do you 
believe that we shall be called to account hereafter for the good 
we might have done to the human race ? I believe it, and I 
think some of you believe that, too. We have facilities and 
opportunities for usefulness in this great country of ours that 
no other people in the world possess. You have heard that 
from the pulpit a hundred times ; but people do not fully ap- 
preciate the fact that this is a goodly land and that we have a 
goodly heritage. In proportion as we have opportunities and 
privileges for doing good and making the world better and ele- 



74 Our Duty and Responsibility, 

vating humanity will be our responsibility in the day of the 
great hereafter. Everybody believes that, for it is common 
sense. I have spoken of the greatness and extent of our 
country. The sun that rises upon its eastern shore goes to 
sleep in the Pacific. You can go down until you reach a point 
where the sun has power enough to melt the ice into frost, and 
aggregating power in its course until it reaches the valley and 
loses itself in the mighty river bearing upon its bosom the com- 
merce of a nation, forming itself into boundaries and States 
large enough for an empire. This country, too, has more di- 
versity of soil, climate, and production than any other country 
on the globe. We owe it to our children to leave this land of 
ours, not as good as we got it only, but if we do our duty we 
will leave it abetter and a soberer country than we found it. If 
we do not do so, the responsibility is with us. If we do our 
duty, we shall lay broad and deep the foundations of a Chris- 
tian civilization. You cannot lay these foundations in a whis- 
key-shop; you cannot do this where whiskey predominates; 
you cannot lay it with drunken men ; you must lay the founda- 
tions of the highest civilization upon Christian principles. If 
we are faithful in doing our duty, we may raise upon this foun- 
dation a temple the summit of which will rise above the clouds, 
and the sun, as he chases before him the squadrons of the night, 
will light it up, and the luminous inscription upon it will be, 
" We are lovers of our race, and left the world better than we 
found it." I look forward to that period, and I believe that it will 
come some time or other. It may not be in my day, but it will 
come, because the mountain of the Lord's host shall prevail; 
one shall chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight. 
It will come soon if each one of us will do our duty. People 
will gather from the cities and towns over this broad land, from 
these broad prairies that stretch themselves out on the sun- 
down side of the Mississippi, and come under the shadow of 
this temple — come as the Jews came up to Jerusalem in the 
days of old — and will make the welkin ring in rejoicing that no 
slave works in our borders and there is no whiskey-shop in 
the land. That will be the result if we do our duty ; if we fail 
to do it, the responsibility is with us. 

Now may God give us courage and honesty and a determina- 
tion to carry forward this work until we shall rejoice in the 
fact that intemperance exists only in the history of the past. 



No ^^ Liberty'' to do Wrong, 75 

NO "LIBERTY" TO DO WRONG. 

BY FATHER WALTER ELLIOTT. 

Liberty is the good word, consecrated by the blood of mar- 
tyrs and heroes in many a hard-fought struggle, behind which 
o jr enemies, the saloon-keepers, entrench themselves. Liberty ! 
Personal liberty ! What liberty do they claim ? Is it the lib- 
erty of the family ? A man will die for his family. Why, gen- 
tlemen, it is from the door of the saloon that the blood-stained 
footsteps are tracked that lead down to the destruction of the 
family ! Liberty to poison the fan;ily, to breed dissension and 
social warfare ! The liberty of the man, is it ? The liberty of 
the beast. There is another liberty men claim, the liberty of 
the citizen. This is a great liberty, too. There are few of us 
who know, except as we read of it in some old history, what it is 
to bare the bosom and to lift the arm in defense of liberty. 
True, there are among us men who fought in the last war, and 
know what it is to battle for their country. Now is there any- 
thing like real civil liberty that inspires the saloon-keepers that 
they should array themselves in liberty leagues ? They are the 
deadliest venom that poison politics. It is the trail from the 
saloon to the low caucus, and from the low caucus back again 
to the saloon, that poisons politics. We know — and perhaps 
we know it better than we are always ready to avow — that 
instead of their having any right to claim protection and lib- 
erty, they are the ones who should be most hated — if it is right 
to hate sin — by those who love truth, liberty, and citizenship. 
And that is what is called the liberty of religion, for there is 
something about the truth which claims a hearing everywhere. 
And of all that can claim rights religious truth is the greatest. 
So that religion, whenever it has the truth within it, reaches 
men who love liberty everywhere, and the liberty of the citizen 
follows the liberty of the Christian. And who can say that the 
liberty of the Christian has anything to do with the liberty of 
those who sell drink and keep saloons ? Many times I have 
walked the streets of large cities hanging my head in shame to 
see the names rendered famous in the great and glorious past 
of our history, associated with the virtues and victories of 
martyrs and heroes, conspicuous over the saloons and associ- 
ated with the work of demons. Liberty, liberty, everywhere ! 



76 Tried and Condemned to Death, 

The liberty of conscience and of religion that there may be 
less restraint upon the very limbs of man by drink. But no 
liberty to do wrong ! No liberty to poison liberty ! No lib- 
erty for the saloon-keeper. 



TRIED AND CONDEMNED TO DEATH IN 
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION. 

BY HON. H. W. BLAIR. 

We have learned that the use of intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage, simply as a beverage and not as a medicine, is an 
evil both useless and hurtful. We have learned that alcohol is 
a poison and not a food ; that it is never useful to the human 
system, save under circumstances when a poison may be useful ; 
never to produce or improve health only as it may remove an 
obstruction to the natural and proper action of this vital ma- 
chine, so fearfully and wonderfully made. Science has become 
our ally, and fortifies our cause with her demonstrations. The 
Byronic phrase, '' Rum and true Religion," was hardly blasphem- 
ous sixty years ago. Now the Christian ministry, Protestant 
and Catholic, is almost a unit against rum. The medical pro- 
fession is against rum ; the judiciary is against rum ; science, 
religion, and the learned professions as a whole, which one 
hundred years ago were for rum, are now against it. The sub- 
stantial press of the country is against it ; intelligence, con- 
science, all the great forces and agencies of society are against 
it. That means its ultimate and inevitable extinction. It must 
be conceded that the use of intoxicating — that is to say, of poi- 
sonous — liquors as a beverage is the chief source and immedi- 
ate cause of more hurt to society and to individuals than any 
other agency which can be named. The war of the rebellion 
cost us fewer lives and less treasure year by year. Pestilence 
has not slain sixty thousand victims in any one year since the 
settlement of this country. If cholera and small-pox combined 
should sweep away one hundred thousand of our countrymen 
in a season, the nation would organize as one vast funeral pro- 
cession and hang the heavens with the emblems of despair. 
Famine is with us unknown, or at least unnecessary, and when- 
ever it exists is a crime either of the victim or of the commu- 
nity, and not an excusable misfortune in any case whatever ; 



Tried and Condemned to Death, 77 

but in other civilized lands starvation, even during the last fifty 
years, has occasionally taught mankind that the terrible word 
cannot yet be dropped from the human vocabulary as descrip- 
tive of an evil, liability to which is extant among men. 

I hazard nothing in appealing to the consciousness of every 
one who listens to me, to attest that he has seen more of evil 
flowing from this than from any other cause during his whole 
lifetime. Those who preach, preach against it, and those who 
pray, pray against it. Platform orators denounce it. The press 
recounts its daily crimes and deviltries, and those who drink, 
as well as those who abstain, vie with each other in stigmatiz- 
ing rum as the worst thing there is extant. Yet somehow the 
old king does most wonderfully hold his own. He is the popu- 
lar curse. He has a round billion of money invested in his 
business, one fortieth of the property and labor of the country 
producing and distributing death and misery to the American 
people. His market is as sure as that for cotton, corn, or beef. 

Whoever believes that the destruction of the liquor traffic is 
not a national issue, has made a mistake. Whoever does not 
comprehend that the removal of that evil is a duty which the 
nation is about to perform, fails to discern the signs of the 
times. Everywhere the question is up. In every State the 
agitation is irrepressible, because the evil is gigantic and omni- 
present. It must be eliminated or society will die. It is of no 
use to cry peace, for there is no peace. Peace without a com- 
plete cure would be the most dangerous symptom. It would 
indicate the destruction of vital power, presaging decline and 
death. 

There never was an evil which has passed away that was not 
destroyed by public opinion. There is not, there never will be, 
an evil which can withstand the assaults of the enlightened 
condemnation of a free people who suffer from it. Well, then, 
my friends, we have this impregnable fact and supreme conso- 
lation — more precious to humanity than a diadem of morning 
stars — that the liquor traffic is doomed and shall be destroyed. 
The demon has been tried and condemned to death in the 
highest court — the court of public opinion. To us is assigned 
the work of execution. Let us proceed to perform that duty 
faithfully, relentlessly, and now ! 



78 What can be Done? 

WHAT CAN BE DONE? 

BY LYMAN BEECHER, D.D. 

Could all the forms of evil produced in the land by intem- 
perance come upon us in one horrid array, it would appeal to 
the nation and put an end to the traffic in ardent spirits. If in 
every dwelling built by blood, the stone from the wall should 
utter all the cries which the bloody traffic exhorts, and the beam 
out of the timber should echo them back, who v/ould build 
such a house ? and who would dwell in it ? What if every part 
of the building, from the cellar upward, through all the halls 
and chambers, babblings, and contentions, and voices, and 
groans, and shrieks, and wailings were heard, day and night ? 
What if the cold blood oozed out, and stood in drops upon the 
walls ; and, by preternatural art, all the ghastly skulls and bones 
of the victims destroyed by intemperance should stand upon 
the walls, in horrid sculpture, within and without the building, 
who would rent such a building ? What if, at eventide, and 
at midnight, the airy forms of men destroyed bv intemperance 
were dimly seen haunting the distilleries and stores where they 
received their bane ; following the track of the ship engaged in 
the commerce ; walking upon the waves ; flitting athwart the 
deck ; sitting upon the rigging, and sending up, from the hold 
within, and from the waves without, groans and loud laments 
and wailings ? Who would attend such stores ? Who would 
labor in such distilleries ? Who would navigate such ships ? 

But these evils are as real as if the stone did cry out of the 
wall, and the beam answered it — as real as if, day and night, 
wailings were heard in every part of the dwelling, and blood 
and skeletons were seen upon every wall. As real as if the 
ghastly forms of departed victims flitted about the ship as she 
passed o'er the billows, and showed themselves nightly about 
stores and distilleries, and with unearthly voices screamed in 
our ears their loud lament. 

But it will be said, What can be done } and ten thousand 
voices will reply, ** Nothing, oh, nothing; men always have 
drunk to excess, and they always will ; there is so much capital 
embarked in the business of importation and distillation, and 
so much supposed gain in vending ardent spirits, and such an 
insatiable demand for them, and such ability to pay for them. 



What can be Done ? 79 

by high-minded, willful, independent freemen, that nothing can 
be done." 

Then farewell, a long farewell, to all oQr greatness. The 
present abuse of ardent spirits has grown out of what was the 
prudent use of it less than one hundred years ago ; then there 
was very little intemperance in the land ; most men who drank 
at all, drank temperately. But if the prudent use of ardent 
spirits one hundred years ago has produced such results as now 
exist, what will the present intemperate use accomplish in a 
century to come ? Let no man turn off his eye from this sub- 
ject, or refuse to reason and infer ; there is a moral certainty of 
a wide-extended ruin without reformation. The seasons are 
not more sure to roll, the sun to shine, or the rivers to flow, 
than the present enormous consumption of ardent spirits is 
sure to produce the most deadly consequences to the nation. 
They will be consumed in a compound ratio ; and there is a 
physical certainty of the dreadful consequences. Have you 
taken thje dimensions of the evil, its manifold and magnifying 
miseries, its sure-paced and tremendous ruin ? And shall it 
come unresisted by prayer, and without a finger lifted to stay 
the desolation } 

What if all men had cried out, as some did at the commence- 
ment of the Revolutionary struggle, " Alas ! we must submit — we 
must be taxed — nothing can be done. Oh, the fleets and armies of 
England, we cannot stand before them." Had such counsels 
prevailed, we should have abandoned a righteous cause, and 
forfeited that aid of Heaven for which men are always author- 
ized to trust in God who are disposed to do His will. 

Nothing can be done. Why can nothing be done ? Because 
the intemperate will not stop drinking, shall the temperate 
keep pn and become drunkards ? Because the intemperate 
cannot be reasoned with, shall the temperate become madmen ? 
And because force will not avail with men of independence and 
property, does it follow that reason, and conscience, and the 
fear of the Lord will have no influence } 

And because the public mind is now unenlightened, and un- 
awakened and unconcentrated, does it follow that it cannot be 
enlightened, and aroused, and concentrated in one simulta- 
neous and successful effort.^ Reformations as much resisted 
by popular feeling, and impeded by ignorance, interest, and 
depraved obstinacy, have been accomplished through the me- 



8o Blot out the Saloon, 

dium of a rectified public opinion ; and no nation ever pos- 
sessed the opportunities and the means that we possess of cor- 
rectly forming the public opinion ; nor was a nation ever called 
upon to attempt it by motives of such imperious necessity. 
Our all is at stake — ^we shall perish if we do not effect it. There 
is nothing that ought to be done which a free people cannot do. 
No great melioration of human condition was ever achieved 
without the concurrent effort of numbers, and no extended, 
well-directed application of moral influence was ever made in 
vain. Let the temperate part of the jiation awake, and re- 
form, and concentrate their influence in a course of systematic 
action, and success is not merely probable, but absolutely cer- 
tain. And cannot this be accomplished ? Cannot the public 
attention be aroused and set in array against the traffic in ar- 
dent spirits and against their use ? With just as much cer- 
tainty can the public sentiment be formed and put in motion as 
the waves can be moved by the breath of Heaven, or the massy 
rock, balanced on the precipice, can be pushed from its centre 
of motion ; and when the public sentiment once begins to move, 
its march will be as resistless as the same rock thundering 
down the precipice. Let no man, then, look upon our condi- 
tion as hopeless, or feel, or think, or say that nothing can be 
done. The language of Heaven to our happy nation is, " Be it 
unto thee even as thou wilt"; and there is no despondency 
more fatal or more wicked than that which refuses to hope, and 
to act, from the apprehension that nothing can be done. 



BLOT OUT THE SALOON. 

BY HON. OLIVER P. MASON. 

The world moves. Things change when the statesmen of 
the day struggle in the interest of spiritualized alcohol. Well, 
thank God for the progress. The world moves. The sunlight 
of progress has illuminated the bleak mountain-tops upon 
which the people dwell, and it will not be long before it will 
spread its sheen of glory over the dark valleys below, and light 
the legislator so he shall grant the request of the weak and 
fallen, and remove the temptation of the saloon from their 
sight. 

I have always thought the best part of the Lord's Prayer was. 



Personal Temperance. 8i 

"lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil." Be- 
lieving this, I do not want to tempt anybody by keeping a sa- 
loon. If you would be free from evil, fly temptation. He who 
would and does not endeavor to avoid the one, cannot expect 
protection from the other. If the first spark were quenched 
there v/ould be no flame. He cannot kill, rob, embezzle, or 
steal who does not first transgress in thought. He cannot de- 
fraud who does not allow himself to covet. He will not drink 
who does not desire. Use the dram-shop as it will use you. 
Spare it not, for it will not spare you. It has murdered, and it 
will murder more. Use it, therefore, as a murderer should be 
used ; kill it before it kills you ; kill it before it kills your soul. 
If the thought of death and the grave, if dishonor and disgrace 
be not pleasant to you, hearken not to the voice of those who 
would longer continue the American licensed saloon as an in- 
strument of civilization and a supporter of common schools. 
Blot out the saloons of this State. Temperance will put wood 
and coal on the fire, meat in the barrel and flour in the chest, 
money In the pocket and credit in the community ; contentment 
in the house, clothes on the children, vigor in the body, in- 
telligence in the brain, and spirit in the whole social circle in 
many hundred families of this State. 



PERSONAL TEMPERANCE. 

BY HON. O. H. PLATT. 

I FIRMLY believe that Temperance is to make no great prog- 
ress toward final triumph in this country or anywhere, until a 
much larger proportion of men become total abstainers, and 
avow themselves to be such. 

The way for prohibition must be prepared by increased total 
abstinence before prohibition can become an accomplished fact. 
Why quarrel angrily about the best way to declare prohibition, 
while such a large majority of men drink? A Christian church 
is impossible unless men lead actual Christian lives. The form, 
the organization might exist without the actual Christian, but 
such a church would be only a powerless name. The real evil 
in our community is the drinking of intoxicating liquor. It is 
drinking the evil of which includes and overshadows the evil of 
the sale ; it is drinking the evil of which includes and over- 



82 Personal Temperance, 

shadows the evil of intemperance. In our righteous onslaught 
upon the sale of liquor, we must not forget this fact. 

I would not for a moment weaken the sentiment which con- 
demns the liquor traffic. It is a cursed trade ; it is a business 
abhorrent to true men and to God ; it is intrenched in power, 
it affiliates with, encourages, and directs the worst elements of 
society. It threatens the prosperity and very existence of 
government. But, however bad, abhorrent, and dangerous the 
sale may be, it is drink which debases manhood, which poisons 
social life, which imperils free government. 

Others may dwell upon the evils of intemperance, upon the 
evils of liquor-selling. I emphasize the evils of liquor-drinking. 
I call upon the man who drinks to put an end to this great 
drink evil, so far as he can do so, by totally abstaining from 
drink. For after all it is a personal question, an individual 
question. When the total abstinence units outnumber the 
drink units in society, then temperance will succeed. And 
you, my friend, are a social unit. Are you a total abstinence 
unit or a drink unit ? If a drink unit, you have but one thing 
to do for temperance, and that is to go over into the other 
column. 

The evangel of total abstinence, like the Gospel of Christ, 
comes to every man, and it must be accepted or rejected by 
each, If, as has been truly said, Christianity is a life, so is 
temperance a life — your life and mine. 

Go into any community and how many men will you find who 
never drink ? That is an unpleasant question to ask ; it is an 
unpleasant question to answer. Question and answer alike 
seem to imply personal reproach. But it needs to be asked 
and to be answered. You will find a great many men who do 
not drink often or much, but how many who never drink at 
all ; how many who can put their hand on their hearts, look 
you in the eye and say, " I am a total abstainer " ? 

If three-fourths of our men drink, if they ever drink, how 
can we expect temperance to make any enduring progress ? 

The most difficult phase of the problem is that those who 
drink least, most effectually hinder temperance progress. The 
drunkards, the hard drinkers, and the liquor-sellers combined 
could not hinder temperance progress for an hour if their 
efforts were not supplemented by the influence of the occa- 
sional drinkers. The great majority of those who drink are 



Personal Temperance, 83 

occasional drinkers only — men who do not drink enough, in 
their own estimation, to do any harm, but who drink just 
enough to array their influence, as well as their example, on 
the side of drink instead of on the side of temperance. If it be 
known that a man drink champagne once a month, that is suf- 
ficient to destroy his influence for temperance. If a man 
drinks beer once a week, and it is not publicly known, he does 
not usually assume the role of a temperance advocate. He 
scarcely feels like asking others not to drink ; he does not 
think it exactly consistent to rebuke the man of whom he buys 
the wine or the beer for liquor-selling. The most he feels like 
doing is in a silent way to wish the cause of temperance suc- 
cess, and in a quiet way to deplore what he calls the evils of 
intemperance. If there were only two classes, if there were 
only the intemperate and hard drinkers in one class and all 
others were total abstainers, the temperance problem would be 
settled at once. We could pass prohibitory laws and enforcethem. 
We could practically suppress the sale, and, better than all, 
when the present generation of intemperate and habitual drinkers 
died out, we should have no more f 01 ever, for the drunkard 
is an evolution; he is evolved from the occasional drinker. 
There is no missing link ; the process of evolution is apparent. 

Who then stands in the way ; who are most, responsible for 
failure ? It is the men who drink but occasionally and who are 
considered " temperate " men ; the men who only drink wine at 
dinners or receptions, beer when asked, whiskey when it seems 
awkward to refuse. To such drinkers I appeal to become total 
abstainers. They can easily abstain if they will ; abstinence 
would involve no sacrifice ; would require no great moral 
struggle ; but oh, what an uplifting of humanity there would be 
as a result of such abstinence ! 

These occasional drinkers are to be found among the most 
forceful and influential men of society. Many of them are typ- 
ical representatives of American energy. They largely control 
business and enterprise and public affairs. They are to be 
found among the inventors, the artisans, the cunning craftsmen 
and the honest toilers who are making American civilization 
the marvel of the world ; among students and scholars and pro- 
fessors ; among legislators and statesmen ; among the strongest 
and brightest and ablest of men. What a power they might 
exercise for temperance. 



84 Let there be Light, 

I entreat, then, the men who drink sparingly, occasionally, 
moderately, to listen to my appeal. It is made in kindness and 
in love, but I emphasize it with all the earnestness of my nature, 
do not drink at all. 



LET THERE BE LIGHT! 

BY J. BANNATYNE. 

The only way of dispelling darkness is by diffusing light. 
They that be drunken, said the apostle;, are drunken in the 
night ; and, extending the phrase to the moral and intellectual 
darkness, we might say, they that were intemperate, and 
wrought and wrote in the cause of intemperance, did so in the 
night of the world. That night is now well-nigh spent ; the 
day is breaking — it has broken ; the shadows are fleeing away, 
and the true light is shining more and more unto that perfect 
day which shall finally put down all the works of darkness. Let 
the friends of temperance then continue to do, just what they 
are doing now, sending forth from a thousand centres of radia- 
tion through the land, the light of truth and experience on this 
important theme, and these auxiliaries of intemperance will 
soon become as innocuous if not as obsolete as the supersti- 
tious phantoms of a former age, or the mythological obsceni- 
ties with which the pages of our most popular poets were at 
one time degraded. This light needs only to be concentrated 
on these inherited corruptions of a former age, to strip them of 
the false hues and trappings with which they have been in- 
vested, and leave them exposed in all their naked deformity, — 
as the morning sun, looking in upon a scene of midnight de- 
bauchery, reveals the odious accompaniments and relics of the 
exhausted revels ; chairs and tables overthrown, bottles and 
glasses shattered to pieces, and discharged with their reeking 
contents through the polluted apartment ; and the pale and 
ghastly countenances of the prostrate revellers, who but a while 
ago were fain to believe themselves in the ecstasy of Paradise. 

These scenes of darkness will not bear the light. Have you 
ever been in a populous city on some lovely night that seemed 
"not made for slumber," and at midnight opened your case- 
ment, to greet the glorious scene, and inhale the hallowed in- 
fluence of the hour, while the moon was walking in her bright- 



Let there he Light. 85 

ness amid her golden retinue of stars, and the silvery clouds 
were gliding on like white-robed couriers through the sky ; and 
the wilderness of houses and spires seemed almost to sleep in 
the holy light, and the mighty heart of the city, which soon 
would beat with all the pulses of life, then lay still and calm as 
death ; and, while you were wrapt in contemplation and breath- 
less ecstasy, have you been startled by some noisy troop of 
revellers, '* sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine," issu- 
ing from some haunt of infamy into the clear moonlight ; and 
have you marked how they suddenly paused, and shrunk into 
their habitations, or hurried like guilty things along the shadow 
of the street, as if they felt that a living Orb, the pure eye of God, 
were open and glaring upon theirs ? Even so it is with all the 
works and workers of iniquity ; they shrink and flee from the 
light, that it may not make manifest their hideous darkness. 

From every pulpit and press in the land, from every school- 
house, from every fireside and social circle, from the corners 
of your streets, from your stores and dock-yards, and places of 
resort, whether for business or pleasure, the universal cry is. 
Temperance — Temperance. Not only old men and matrons, 
and young men and maidens, but children of the tenderest age, 
are taught to repeat this watchword of their liberty. I ques- 
tion whether there ever was a subject, not political or pecu- 
niary, on which, in the same space of time, so much has been 
written, spoken, and done, as on the subject of temperance, 
within the last few years, in these United States ; and almost 
all on one side, too ; the most cordial unanimity. 

Such is the deluge of temperance light now pouring in upon 
society from every point of observation and experience, that by 
and by, like the natural daylight, described by Shakespeare, — 

*' It was a garish, broad, and peering day, 
Light, loud, suspicious, full of eyes and ears, 
And every litde corner, hole, and nook 
Was penetrated by the insolent light," — 

I say in this universal illumination, there will not be left a 
single cleft of the rock, or cave of the earth, or den in the 
deepest sinks of pollution ; not a single nook or corner of the 
land, in which intemperance can hide his diminished head. 
What a revolution is this ! There has been nothing like it in 
the history of the world, at least since the days of the Apostles. 



S6 Coming Home from Town, 

What are political revolutions in comparison? And if it be 
true that he that subdues himself is greater than he that taketh 
a city, then I say that ten thousand revolutions, ten thousand 
thrones of hoariest despotism shattered to their base, ten 
thousand free and independent States springing into existence, 
have altogether less of moral sublimity than the spectacle of 
millions of immortal beings spurning away the shackles of a 
more degrading thralldom, and declaring themselves, in the 
sight of God and men — in the face of the universe declaring 
themselves to be — free ! 



COMING HOME FROM TOWN. 

BY HATTIE D. CASTLE. 

*Tis a dreamily beautiful summer day ; 
No more perfect peace on the prairie lay 
In the flush of the fair Creation day 
When, fresh from God's hand, it stretched away : 
It almost seems we can hear Him say 
'* 'Tis good "; and we bow our heads the while 
In the beautiful sunshine ; 'tis His smile. 
Here like a lone isle in a beautiful sea, 
A homestead lies nestling, so fair, and so free, 
With its green, waving cornfield, and bright stubble lot, 
And its cosy new house, in the pleasantest spot. 
Any spot on earth would be paradise 
Where sin, and sorrow, and withering vice, 
And the world's pollution, had never come ; 
And surely this beautiful prairie home 
That the blue skies bless, as they bend above, 
Is a haven of purity, peace, and love. 
But the shadows grow longer, the bright day is done ; 
'Neath the free, wide horizon, sinketh the sun ; 
The bright day is dying, most beautiful so, 
The glad earth is golden, the heavens are aglow. 
The busy young wife hurries now, to and fro, 
The table is spread with its covering of snow ; 
With exquisite neatness the baby is dressed. 
And the supper prepared, as he likes it the best ; 
Still he comes not, the slow-footed moments drag on. 
The flush and the glory of sunset is gone, 



Comhig Home from Town. 87 

Dewy fragrance steals in on the soft summer air ; 

The supper is spoiling, in spite of her care. 
'* You must keep awake, baby, to laugh and to crow ! 

For papa, dear papa, is coming, you know. 

What ! was it so sleepy ? Well, then, here you go ! 

You are just as sweet sleeping, for aught that I know ; 

Maybe angels come nearer, with whisperings low. 

I wonder what keeps him ! I'll go to the gate, 

Now baby is sleeping, and libten, and wait." 

Ah ! little she thinks, as she goes out the door. 

Her glad, girlish heart shall come back nevermore ; 

For this was the greeting, that fell like a weight 

On the faithful heart at the farmyard gate : 
** Pretty late, eh? wifey. Well, I'll be blowed 

If I didn't come home by the crooked road ! 

I hawed, and I geed, and I pulled them about, 

But the direct road I couldn't make out ; 

I felt kind of dizzy, and tired, and bad, 

And I pulled, and I twitched, till old gray got mad ; 

So says I, ' Old girl, may be you know best ! ' 

And I lay down a spell in the wagon, to rest. 

Now don't you think I'm tight, and fret out your life, 

I'll keep my head level, now, my good little wife ! 

But I fee] almost wild with this pain in my head ; 

I guess I'll turn in, when the horses are fed." 

O fair prairie home ! you are touched by the frost : 
Though your paradise bloom, 'tis a paradise lost : * 

** The trail of the serpent is over it all." 
Slowly, and sadly, the night shadows fall ; 
The young wife sits on the sill, alone, 
Watching the stars come out, one by one ; 
The dew is damp on her drooping head ; 
Her heart is heavy with shame and dread. 
Ashamed of her husband ! the sorest shame. 
To the heart of a woman, that ever came. 
She has promised to honor, to love, and obey : 
His honor is tarnished ; her idol is clay. 
In those sad-footed hours, sitting there on the sill, 
She has lived through a lifetime, its good and its ill : 
She has tenderly, tearfully buried away 
The lightness and brightness of girlhood's glad day : 
She has traversed the future, a wearisome way, 
Whose path has grown dreary, whose skies have grown gray; 



88 The World on Fire. 

No joy for her, e'en in her baby's soft coo, 

With this terrible question to haunt and pursue : 

Will he grow to manhood, a drunkard, too ? 

She has changed from* a girl to a sad-hearted wife, 

She has tasted the dregs in the nectar of life, 

She has drained off the sparkle, and come to the dross, 

She has laid down the garland, and taken the cross ; 

To patiently bear it, how long, and how well. 

There is many a sad-hearted woman could tell. 



THE WORLD ON FIRE! 

BY REV. H. A. DELANO. 

Fire ! fire ! fire ! Shout it wild and loud. Startle the hot, 
lurid atmosphere about us, wake the very graves with the echo ; 
rattle the hose-cart over the street ; ring the bells, and let their 
brazen tongues swell the chorus of alarm. 

The whole land is on fire ! Rum is burning the nation's 
hope to ashes. The conflagration is spreading, and the billows 
of its wrath beat remorselessly against what is fairest and dear- 
est to our civilization. 

Wake up the people ! Some are already awake. Wives who 
weep and groan at the altar of despair, and half-starved babes 
Cluing in agony which their infant lips fail to explain. 

Home, furniture, carpet, garments, baby toys, Bible, jewelry, 
and keepsakes, the orange-blossoms of the wedding day, all 
have perished; love withered and turned crisp in the awful 
heat, the flowers of affection turned to mocking skeletons, as 
the fire of desolation laughed its hot breath in the face of 
wretchedness and woe. 

Oh, the awful wreck of this night of Rum ! Michigan woods 
on fire ; Chicago baptized in billows of flame, whose forked 
tongues hiss their way through the palace of luxury and the 
temple of art — all that could not compare with this. Women 
and children go in shivering, pitiful, wailing pilgrimage to the 
almshouse, while fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons prostrate 
themselves upon the funeral pile, and devote body and soul to 
the infernal god of drink. Drivelling pothouse politicians, 
talking of the affairs of State ! The homes, the fortunes, com- 



The World on Fire, 89 

mercial enterprises, business, hopes, and amenities, ciTisaded by 
an army of saloonists, larger than the armies which waded 
through blood to save and redeem it. Communism of Paris 
turned loose upon the world ! Hell holding high carnival ! The 
echoing crack, crack, crack, of the drunken assassin's pistol, 
startling the midnight air ; the smothered thud, and rip, and 
gurgle of the bowie-knife and dagger doing their nocturnal 
mission by the glare of this hell-born flame ! Ring the bells ! 
Let them clang ! America is stone-blind drunk ! A man who 
works in a distillery has no need of drink. He inhales suffi- 
cient to give stupefaction to all his senses. We have inhaled 
this atmosphere until we are all dazed. The pulpit is insensi- 
ble, and the pews of our noblest laymen are full of the odor of 
the deadly opiate. The paralysis of alcohol is upon religion, 
morals, and trade, and God only knows whither we are going. 
Shall we, can we, put out the fire ? 

The crusade worked well, but we gave it up. The Murphy 
movement was a force, but it was abandoned. We have tried 
to stop a train whose company, engineer, conductor, brakeman, 
all, were running in the interest of the rum power. They have 
pulled the throttle and let her go, like a tornado, until now the 
train with the crash and moan of death goes whirling toward 
the bottom of the gulf. It seems to me that judgment must 
begin at the Church of God. We cannot satisfy the eternal 
and infinite God by healing the hurt of the daughter of His 
people a little ; there must be thorough work. A complete un- 
harnessing of God's people and Christian citizens from all self- 
ish considerations ; and out and out disentanglement from all 
personal or worldly considerations. 

** There walketh a fiend o'er the glad, green earth. 

By the side of the reaper death. 
He dazzles alike by the glare of mirth, 
Or quenches the light of the household hearth 

With his foul and withering breath. 
He nerves the arm with relentless hate. 

With the goblet's beaded foam ; 
He lurks in the halls of the rich and great, 
In the beggar's moan at the palace gate, 

And hides in the pauper's home." 



90 The World on Fire. 

The enormity, the immensity, vastness, fatality, power of this 
curse is appalling. It makes one's brain reel. It sickens u^ 
through and through ; words are impotent, rhetoric is weak, 
imagination is exhausted, figures exhausted, and the heart 
smothered before it. But one thing, to me, is more wonderful, 
far more wonderful, namely, the apathy, deadness, spiritual in- 
difference of the Church of God as regards its ravages. How 
has the fine gold become dim ! What aileth thee, O house of 
Israel } How time-serving; cautious, careful thou hast becom^! 
Whither, with a slumbering church, a debauched public senti- 
ment, a whiskey-bound legislature, and the times so universally 
out of joint, are we tending } Taxes are growing so enormously 
as to bankrupt our cities and to drain the wealth of the country. 
America, that as yet has evolved no philosophy, written no 
world-wide poem, founded no university like those of Europe, 
giving promise of potency, of grandeur, of wealth, and freedom ; 
now, trying to swallow herself. Her throat a gulf stream. Drink, 
drink, drink, for her politicians and her people from morn till 
night ; 'tis simply infinitely overwhelming, terrible. What will 
you do about it } 

Resolved, To put out this fire, what can we do } We can 
still arouse and alarm the people. What else ? Teach God's 
word, that *'wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging." 
What else ? Pray, and keep voting as you pray. W^hat else 1 
Lecture, talk, write, and push this sentiment into everlasting 
recognition. Weep, toil, battle, suffer, and grow strong. 
Arouse public sentiment, open blind eyes, use the press, sow 
the land knee-deep with literature, use love, use argument, 
facts, song, sentiment, and influence of every legitimate sort, 
until the day dawns, and the shadows flee away. Swamps, 
pools of Stygian darkness, mire and death-breeding foulness 
have been cleansed, filled up, and highways of commerce and 
travel reared. The city of Chicago was once a swamp. Mor- 
ally, by divine help and everlasting deathless energy hitched to 
this car of a people's salvation, we can go forward to triumph. 
The impracticable with God becomes the practical. 

** For truth is truth, and right is right, 
And God the day must win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty. 
To falter would be sin." 



A Woman* s Prayer. 91 

A WOMAN^S PRAYER. 

BY LILLIE A. HUMPHREY. 

'* God bless our native land," glad bells are ringing, 
Grandly their music swells forth on the air ; 
Firm may she ever stand, voices are singing, 
Rising to Heaven like white wings of prayer. 
Up to the throne on high 
Wafted that fervent cry — 
Keep Thou our nation's heart stainless and fair. 

God save our country from crime and disaster ! 

Tidings of woe from each side of us come, 
Millions to ruin rush swifter and faster. 
Madly enslaved in the bondage of rum. 
'* Our hills with freedom ring ! '* 
Dare we that anthem sing ? 
**^ Liberty's birthplace ! " Our lips are hushed, dumb. 

We a free people? And our Constitution 
Licensing bondage to brandy and gin ? 
Sure as God liveth a dire retribution 
Follows the people that traffic in sin ! 
Oh, for the shame of it,. 
Blush for the name of it. 
Where shall the angel of justice begin ? 

List ! 'Tis the voice of a Christianized nation, 
Kneeling at morning, at night, and at noon, 
Praying, ** Lord, lead us not into temptation," 
While on each corner a drinking-saloon 
Brings with its fatal spell 
Horrors we dare not tell. 
God, we pray, shuddering, blot them out soon. 

God, save the State ! And from Erie's blue waters 

Down to the south where our State river flows. 
Gather the wives and the mothers and daughters 
Shrinking with pain 'neath the weight of their woes. 
** God plead our cause for us, 
God make our laws for us,'* 
Pray they in agony God only knows. 



92 A Woman's Prayer. 

*' God save our native land," praying lips falter ; 
Pale, patient pleaders bereft of lifers joys ; 
Throbbing hearts sacrificed on passion's altar. 
Beat to the measure of "God save our boys 1 " 
** In our most sore distress, 
Wilt Thou in mercy bless, 
Save from the wine-cup that lures and destroys." 

** God save our boys," moans a heart-broken mother^ 
Bowed is the head with its grief-silvered hair. 
A sister in agony weeps o'er a brother ; 
A desolate wife, in her tearless despair, 
Kneels in her broken home, 
Pleading for those who roam, 
God save the straying, the theme of each prayer. 

Proud, loyal spirits in anguish are quiv'ring, 

Pure, tender hearts break with sorrow to-day ; 
Innocent feet in the cold world are shiv'ring. 
No hand to keep them from going astray ; 
Snared by temptation's waves 
Into dishonored graves. 
Lit by no gleam from the heavenly ray. 

Look on that glass of red wine for a minute ! 

What scene does memory's tablet unroll ? 
Dare you to picture the wretchedness in it ? 
Is it something within legislative control ? 
By what computation, 
Pray, reckons the nation. 
Laying a tax on the price of a soul ? 

Down on our knees, with no roof to spread o'er us. 
Save the blue dome where the golden stars shine, 
Let us thank God, through His mercy spread o'er us. 
Sheltering us with its shadow divine, 
That blighting woe that comes 
Darkening other homes, 
Never has entered at your door or mine. 

But in our households of peace and security, 
Aren't we forgetting that work must be done ? 



Which will you Choose i 93 

Think of the home that is robbed of its purity — 
Think of the mother that's robbed of her son. 

God speed the blessed day, 

When we once more can say, 
Wrong has been conquered and righteousness won. 

Let us not idly deplore our condition, 

Let action, not word, of our zeal be the test ; 
Not praying alone for this sin's prohibition. 
But work for it, too, with courage and zest. 
Not till with hand and heart. 
We've bravely done our part. 
May we sit down and trust God for the rest. 

God bless our land ! ^tis the old interceding ; 

God save our State ! echoes on through the years ; 
God save our homes ! comes in low, fervent pleading, 
Rescue the tempted — through passionate tears ; 
Sighing through sadness. 
And sung through our gladness, 
Trembling through sorrows and throbbing through fears. 



WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE? 

BY PAUL DENTON. 

We wage war against the drinking customs of society, and 
appeal to you to give up the intoxicating liquor as a beverage, 
because it is useless. Can you find me one man that is ben- 
efited by it ? What good is there in it ? It is filling our alms- 
houses and jails. Its influence is hanging yon trembling 
wretch upon the gallows. What good is there in it ? How 
many men are dethroning their reason and hiding its bright 
beams in the mystic clouds that roll round the shattered temple 
of the soul, curtained in midnight ! What good is there in it ? 
Bring me a man that is benefited morally, physically, or intel- 
lectually by its use. No good in it } There is good in that 
which we would give you instead of it, — pure, life-giving water, — 
water that God gives to His children. Where does He brew it ? 
Not in the simmering still, over smoky fires, choked with 
poisonous gases, and surrounded with the stench of sickening 



94 The Nation's best Friend. 

odors and rank corruption, doth your Father in heave» prepare 
the precious essence of life, — the pure, cold water ; but in the 
green glade and grassy dell where the red-deer wanders and the 
child loves to play, there God brews it ; and down low in the 
deep valleys, where the fountains murmur and the rills sing ; 
and high on the tall mountain-tops, where the naked granite 
glitters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods and 
the thunder-tones crash ; and away far out on the wide, wide 
sea, where the hurricanes howl music and the big waves roar 
the chorus, "sweeping the march of God," — there He brews it, 
that beverage of life, health-giving water. 

No poison bubbles on its brink ; its foam brings not madness 
and murder ; no blood ever stains its liquid glass ; pale widows 
and starving orphans weep not burning tears in its beautiful 
clear depths ; no drunkard's shrieking ghost curses it in words 
of eternal despair. 

Water ! blessed water ! Everywhere it is a thing of beauty, — 
glistening in the dewdrop, dancing in the hail-storm, singing 
in the summer rain, hanging in ice-drops like jewels on the 
trees, spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a white 
gauze around the midnight moon ; sporting in the cataract, 
sleeping in the glacier — folding its bright snow-curtains softly 
about the wintry world ; and weaving the many-colored iris, 
that seraphs' zone of the sky whose warp is the raindrop of 
earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven ; always beautiful, 
pure, bright, blessed life-giving, strengthening water. Which 
will you choose ? Speak out, my friends ; which will you 
choose .> Pure life-giving water, or the demon's drink,— al- 
cohol } 



THE NATION^S BEST FRIEND. 

BY J. ELLEN FOSTER. 

Some people think that temperance reformers are disturbers 
of the peace ; that they meddle with other people's business ; 
that if they would only keep still society would get on much 
better. Most persons admit that total abstinence is a good 
thing for the individual; that it would be a good thing if all 
the saloons were closed; but these same persons rerist the 
efforts of temperance reformers to bring about these desired 



The Nation's best Friend. 95 

results, it is not our purpose at this time to give reasons v;hy 
all people should be total abstainers, or to show hov/ much 
better off every town would be if the saloons were abolished. 
But it is our desire to prove that the temperance reform is the 
best friend the country has. 

If our hearts were hard ; if we did not care for the sorrows of 
little children or the wrongs of defrauded wives, or the broken 
hearts of mothers bereft,— if we did not care for blighted man- 
hood and depraved old age, — if none of these things moved us, 
we ought still to know that these little children, these wives and 
mothers, these sons and husbands,— are parts of a great whole, 
which we call the nation, and that this nation, whose emblem 
is the starry flag, cannot hold its proud place among the na- 
tions of the earth, unless its head and heart and hands are 
clear and clean and strong, and this they cannot be if the people 
are poisoned with drink. 

The United States is the youngest among the nations of the 
earth, but it is the richest. God has given us a continent of 
wonderful soil and climate, and of great extent ; and the land 
belongs to the people. The gold and the silver hid in the 
pockets of the earth ; the coal and the iron stored in its treas- 
ure-houses ; the trees in the forest ; the stone in the quarry ; 
the harvest on the prairie ; the cotton in its bolls, beautiful 
as the fleecy clouds above ; the wool on the sheep, and the fish 
in the waters, — these all wait for man. He can become pos- 
sessed of their treasure; he may use them for his comfort, for 
his food, his clothing and his shelter, — and he will, unless 
weakened by disease and debauched by sin ; nothing so much 
as strong drink breeds disease and causes sin. 

We are very proud of our free school system and of the in- 
telligence of our people, but alcohol burns away and destroys 
the mind. We boast of our industrial system ; of the good 
wages and the happy homes of our working people, but the 
drink bill of the country is the heaviest tax upon labor which 
the people pay. 

So bounteous is our store of food that from our bursting 
granaries, ship-loads are sent across the ocean to the starving 
Russians, and all the world says, *' God bless America." But more 
than the ship-loads sent ; more than the bread that brings re- 
joicing, is the constant waste in the distillery and the brewery ; 
that which God blessed and said, " Behold it is very good," be- 



96 King Alcohol at the Bar of Science. 

comes poison and engenders cursing, and the nation is robbed 
of its joy and impoverished in its peace. 

This is not all. Better than America's broad prairies ; richer 
than her material resources ; more magical in creative power, 
are the political institutions of the Republic. Matchless is the 
enterprise fostered by free institutions ; unmeasured is the dig- 
nity, and unimpeachcd the integrity of conscious self-govern- 
ment ; but the drink habit and the drink traffic, with leprous 
touch and satanic greed, enter this Holy of Holies, and Amer- 
ica's freemen become the devil's slaves. 

Against all this, — sorrow and anguish and ignorance and 
poverty and slavery and death, — the temperance reform is set. 
Do we not then make good our plea, that we are not disturbers 
of the peace, but rather peacemakers ? May we not reverently 
claim the benediction — " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they 
shall be called the children of God " ? Have we not verified 
our assertion that the temperance reform is the best friend the 
country has ? May we not as Christian patriots pray : 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of Liberty, 

To Thee we call. 
Long may our land be bright 
With Freedom*s holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God our King. 



KING ALCOHOL AT THE BAR OF SCIENCE. 

BY BISHOP HENRY W. WARREN. 

I PROPOSE to put science on this stand, and let it tell us 
something about the effect of alcoholic drinks upon the human 
body. King Alcohol, you have practiced at your bar a great 
while : now stand up at the bar of Science, and be acquitted 
and welcomed, or convicted and banished, according to the 
evidence. 

Science assures us that alcohol is never changed into any 
other compound in the living body. Hence it can never be 
food or fuel. It is never appropriated by any organ for its 
sustenance. It remains alcohol everywhere and always. It is 



King Alcohol at the Bar of Science. 97 

alcohol when it goes in, while it stays, and when it comes out. 
The theory that it is in any sense food is distinctly disproved, 
and ha^ been everywhere abandoned. 

It goes in an enemy, it remains an enemy, it is cast out as an 
enemy, or, too strong, it conquers the citadel and destroys the 
life. 

When a country is invaded, its commerce and varied indus- 
tries must stop, that the invader may be cast out. When alco- 
hol invades the kingdom of man, digestion, assimilation, and 
growth nearly or wholly stop, that the foe may be routed. 
Swallow a needle, and the system puts it out the nearest way ; 
between the ribs, if it point that way ; through the foot, the 
furthest way, if it point thither; but it puts it out. Swallow 
alcohol, and the system puts it out by every possible way to 
void it. The blood carries it to the lungs, and scents the sur- 
rounding air for hours with pure alcohol. It goes to the kid- 
neys, and they throw it out. The whole skin exudes it. The 
whole man smells like a distillery. Neither is alcoholic drink 
a source of strength. Trainers of men for feats of strength in- 
variably forbid all kinds of ale, beer, porter, wine, rum, brandy. 
They cast out the whole legion of devils at once. 

Milo, the Samson of Italy, and his forerunner, the Samson of 
Judea, were both total abstainers. This is small comfort for 
weak backs and weak heads that try to strengthen themselves 
with bitters, cordials, and wines. The only use for them is 
when one has too much strength and can find no possible use 
for it. Then alcohol may be safely recommended to reduce it 
with rapidity truly astonishing. 

Neither is alcohol a producer of heat. I might quote volumes 
of testimony from experience in Canadian and Russian winters, 
from travellers on Arctic and Antarctic ice, to show that alcohol 
is death to men exposed to a temperature ranging toward 100 de- 
grees below zero. But that would be experience, and we are not 
willing to take anything that has a shade of uncertainty about 
it just yet. We have too huge a pledge pending to take any- 
body's experience or opinion. What is fact.^ Here comes 
Science, thermometer in hand, and she shows that alcohol 
actually reduces the temperature of a body receiving it. That 
is what we wanted to know. And now we know it. If we were 
receiving testimony and not mathematical certainties, we would 
produce the testimony of Sir Charles Napier, and a host of sur- 



98 Our Country : Its Dangers and Destiny. 

geons in the East Indian army, that alcohol is equally death for 
men who have to face the heat of a tropical sun. 

I here close my certainties about alcohol. I allow no man to 
dispute one of them. They are all sure as a two-foot rule, 
ponderable as pig-iron, inevitable as the tax collector. We 
make no allowance for varieties of constitution, peculiarities of 
temperament, diversity of habit, differences of alcoholic con- 
comitants. These conclusions are sure as fate, viz. : Alcohol 
never digests food, nor helps digest it ; never assists the body 
to permanently resist cold; brings no increase of strength; 
vitiates the blood ; emasculates the muscles ; indurates the 
brain ; harms the nerves ; never acts as food, but is always and 
everywhere a poison, in sickness and in health, and the vital 
powers try their utmost to throw it off, even to the extent of 
perishing in the attempt. Now, these are facts, not opinions ; 
certainties, not deductions. No man can gainsay them. Neither 
are there any counter-facts. 

Surely, knowing that alcohol is evil, only evil, and that 
continually, what shall we do about it .^ Why, banish the 
wine-cup, dash it away at once and forever. And let all the 
people say, amen ! 



OUR COUNTRY: ITS DANGERS AND 
DESTINY. 

BY WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH. 

My native land ! amid thy cabin homes. 
Amid thy palaces, a demon roams ; 
Frenzied with rage, yet subtle in his wrath. 
He crushes thousands in his fiery path ; 
Stalks through our cities unabashed and throws 
Into the cup of sorrow bitterer woes ; 
Gives to the pangs of grief an added smart ; 
With keenest anguish wrings the breaking heart 
Drags the proud spirit from its envied height. 
And breathes on fondest hopes a killing blight ; 
Heralds the shroud, the coffin, and the pall, 
And the graves thicken where his footsteps fall ! 

Ho, for the rescue ! ye whose eyes have seen 

The ruin wrought where Drunkenness hath been, — 



True Freedom, 99 

Ye who have gazed upon the speechless grief 

Of early widowhood, that mocked relief, — 

Ye who have heard the orphan's struggling sigh, 

When, mad with agony, he prayed to die, — 

Ye who have marked the crimes and shames that throng 

Like sateless fiends, the drunkard's way along, — 

Ye who can tell his everlasting doom 

When darkly over him shall close the tomb. 

Up for the conflict !— let your battle-peal 

Ring on the air as rings the clash of steel, 

When rank to rank, contending armies meet, 

Trampling the dead beneath their bloody feet ! 

Up ! ye are bidden to a nobler strife, — 

Not to destroy, but rescue human life ; 

No added drop in misery's cup to press, 

But minister relief to wretchedness ; 

To give the long-lost father to his boy, — 

To cause the widow's heart to sing for joy, — 

Bid Plenty laugh where hungry Famine howls, 

And pour the sunlight o'er the tempest's scowls, — 

Bring to the soul that to despair is given 

A new-found joy — a holy hope of heaven ! 



TRUE FREEDOM. 

BY MRS. H. M. INGHAM. 

With its ponderous wheels upon the smooth track fitted to 
them stood a magnificent locomotive, just from the hands of 
its builder. Every lever and valve was perfect. Its beauty 
and polish filled with pride the heart of the engineer, who 
lovingly touched the shining surfaces, and with almost a caress 
gave rein to his iron steed. Before it stretched the firm, 
smooth rails upon which the locomotive was to make its first 
journey, swift and sure as the flight of a strong eagle. But the 
heart of the locomotive, as it flew along, burned with discon- 
tent. With its eye of fire it looked into the distance, and saw 
waving forests and dancing brooks it could not reach. The 
birds were singing and the flowers blooming in that alluring 



lOo True Freedom, 

scene, far from the shining track of steel. And the locomotive 
murmured that its way lay so far from those scenes of beauty. 
And it said, '* Why should I be bound to this narrow track and 
these monotonous vales ? I will be free. I will leap from these 
tyrant rails and wander whither I will. Why should I be a slave 
to so weak a creature as he who claims the right to determine 
my course ? " So, reaching a bridge beneath which flowed a 
murmuring stream bordered with flowers, the locomotive leaped 
from the path it was meant to run. But lo ! it fell, a ruin in 
the river's depth, its wheels broken, its bright surfaces dimmed, 
its rebellious heart broken. Essaying to be free, it became a 
wreck. 

A fair ship sailed across the sea. Its sharp bows cut the 
waves, which rippled, foaming, along its sides, as its white 
wings filled with the favoring breezes. But it saw fair islands 
afar from its channel, and heard the soft murmur of distant 
waves. "Why do I move in so narrow a path?" it cried. 
"Afar are scenes so much more beautiful. Am I a slave that 
I should be bound to a sphere so mean ? Nay, I will spread 
wide my swift wings and fly to the enchanted islands." So it 
broke from the guidance of the pilot's wise hand ; and days 
after it lay, broken and ruined, upon the deceitful rocks, where 
still the waves softly murmured. It thought to be free, but it 
became a ruin. 

A young man stood at the gate of the future. His eye was 
bright, his cheek soft and fair, his heart pure. But in his mind 
woke longings for freedom from the restraints put upon him. 
" I am a man !" he cried. " I will be free ! " Yonder burned the 
false lights of perilous pleasures. The wine-cup sparkled bright, 
and the spirit of the wine spake to the young man, " Come, 
oh ! youth," it said. " Drink and be gay and free. I will 
brighten your eye and rejoice your heart. I will give you gay 
companions, and you shall have days of pleasure and nights of 
mirth. Why should you be a slave to foolish prejudice and un- 
reasoning restriction } " 

So the young man drank. It was but a tiny glass, but the 
red wine set his brain on fire with strange excitement, and the 
second glass came all too soon. Revelry followed indulgence, 
and drunkenness followed revelry. And by and by there was a 
narrow grave filled with a bloated, ruined body, and a soul 
made for glorious destinies was wrecked, essaying to be free. 



Prohibition is in the Air. loi 

Freedom, what is it ? It is the sway of soul over body. Let 
soul be king : body that king's willing, obedient servant. Then 
does the soul soar, unbound, untrammeled by earthly passion 
or desire, free as the bird, pure as the lily, joyous as the angels. 
But the body's rule is anarchy, riot, ruin. 

Oh, shining locomotive, obey the hand of him who guides 
thee ; oh, white-sailed ship, obey the will of him who sits with 
hand upon thy wheel ; oh, body of man, obey the kingly soul, 
whose sway is perfect freedom. The body's rule is death : the 
soul supreme means liberty eternal. 



PROHIBITION IS IN THE AIR. 

BY A. C. DIXON, D.D. 

Do you know, friend, that alcohol is the enemy to every 
function of your body } The moment it enters the man there 
is rebellion all through the physical system. The heart rises to 
cast it out; it beats faster. The nerves, muscles, and brain be- 
come agitated. Leonidas and his brave band of Spartans stood 
in the narrow pass of Thermopylae until the ground was red- 
dened by their blood. And when alcohol tries to pass through 
the capillaries between vein and artery, there is such a battle 
that the dead are often left on the field, and that, Mr. Toper, is 
what is the matter with the end of your nose. Alcoholism has 
slain some of the brave soldiers that tried to prevent its pass- 
age through the narrow pass. More than that, alcohol cooks 
the body. If you want to cook an ^^'g^ you may put it on the 
fire or in a glass of whiskey ; and I know some men, who, if 
they were beefsteak, you could serve them up to-morrow as 
more than half done. .They are cooked in brain, nerve, and 
muscle. No wonder they are becoming drivelling idiots ! 

Common sense is always on the side of conscience, and com- 
mon sense is, therefore, on the side of prohibition. In an 
idiots' home, of which I have heard, there is a room, made 
water-tight, in which the mental condition of patients is tested. 
A patient is put in there and the spigot is turned on. If he has 
not sense enough to turn off the spigot, but lets the water rise 
in the room until it threatens to drown him, he is pronounced 
incapable of taking care of himself. The superintendent, show- 



I02 Prohibition is in the Air. 

ing this room to a friend, said, " All but idiots turn off the tap." 
Now this country is to-day a sort of liquor-tight compartment 
which is being flooded with whiskey, and it does seem to an 
outsider that men of common sense would turn off the tap. 

Certainly the home with all its tender associations is on the 
side of prohibition. The worst enemy of the home is the sa- 
loon, and the worst enemy of the saloon, therefore, is the home. 
If Hght is to prevail against darkness, the home will, in the long 
run, prevail against the saloon. 

We have on our side the conscience of the whole people. 
The national conscience is for prohibition. When Uncle Sam 
has anything to attend to which affects his immediate pros- 
perity, as on election day, he closes the saloons. He believes 
that in an important matter like voting total abstinence is the 
wisest course, and the way to bring about total abstinence is to 
keep the liquor from the voter. The special tax is a tribute to 
prohibition. It indicates that the Government regards the 
liquor traffic as one which ought to pay for the harm it 
does. A Senator of North Carolina, during the prohibition 
agitation in his State, was asked by a committee what side 
he was on. " Well, gentlemen," he replied, " my conscience 
is for you, but my stomach is against you." That is about 
the status of the case everywhere. Greed, thirst for power, and 
appetite are all against prohibition, but the conscience is for it. 

We are optimistic enough to believe that the trend of the 
times is on the side of prohibition. Prohibition is in the air. 
Railroad corporations are now prohibitionists so far as their 
employees are concerned. Life insurance companies are pro- 
hibitionists for their patrons. Every department of business 
has learned that even moderate drinking does not make a man 
a better clerk or workman. All over this country the question 
of local option for churches, school-houses, and communities is 
being agitated. These premonitions mean something, and the 
saloon-keeper had better take warning. A guide, as we stood 
by the crater of Vesuvius, said that there was no danger just 
now of a great eruption, because, before such a catastrophe, 
they always had the warning of earthquakes, and the drying up 
of the springs. These local-option agitations, let the saloon- 
keeper understand, are earthquakes preceding an eruption of 
popular indignation, and the springs are drying up ; the spring 
of high license, for instance. Prohibition is in the air. All 



Prohibition is in the Air, 103 

great reforms are in the air before they crystallize into some- 
thing solid. That mass of water above Johnstown was in the 
air at one time, and by the gentle force of the sunlight and the 
forces of the electric current, this mist in the air became water, 
which, gathered from hillside and plain, piled up till at a certain 
time it was let loose and went howling, hissing, rushing, roar- 
ing down the Conemaugh valley, carrying destruction with it. 
This sentiment in the air will pile up by and b}^ until when let 
loose at some popular election, it will be such a force that 
nothing can resist it. 

A traveller going through Switzerland comes to a great 
snowbank, and as he passes before it, the guide whispers, '' Be 
quiet ; a light word might loosen the soft snow and bring an 
avalanche upon us that would sweep us to the foot of the 
mountain." That great snowbank was once in the air, until it 
crystallized in white flakes, and came gently down piling up 
month after month, year after year, until there is an accumu- 
lated force, irresistible if turned loose. This sentiment in the 
air is crystallizing into white ballots, which are piling them- 
selves up in local-option elections and in prohibition statutes, 
until by and by, v/ith such an accumulated force ready to move, 
some man— God knows who he is, I don't — will be able to 
speak the word, as the leader of all temperance and prohibition 
sentiment in this country, and that word will let loose the 
avalanche of destruction upon the liquor traffic. Then, and 
not till then, can we say without any mental reservation : 

** My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing. 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring." 
Until then this is our prayer : 

** Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing. 
Soon may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light, 
Protect it by Thy might. 

Great God, our King." 



104 ^^^ Saloon- Keeper's Story. 

THE SALOON-KEEPER'S STORY. 

BY LYDIA H. TILTON. 

Yes, I had drawn the plans, for my new store, that day : — 
Swell front, and plate-glass windows, and granite (meant to stay). 
Tile floors and marble counters, rich screens, and cut-glass fine : 
Outside respectability can alvvays sell more wine. 

I meant to have fine pictures, and music, and such things 
As please the wealthier custom, that surest profit brings. 
A shadowy fear of losses that might recoil on me, — 
The evil done my neighbors, — I would not pause to see» 

I pitied them, and blamed^ but somebody would sell. 

And somebody would profit — in ways I knew too well ; 

So why not I ? but just that fateful moment came 

Two little boys to plead with me, and one, sir, bore my name. 

You never saw my boy, sir ! He was my hope, my pride, 
Whom never in the glad ten years I once had had to chide. 
Just like his mother always and not a bit like me ; 
His bright young face was like a hope of better life to me. 

Sometimes the questions shining from out those clear young eyes 
Stopped all my thought, they filled so with such a sad surprise, 
When hasty word or oath, sir, or some small deed unkind 
Revealed to him more clearly the true bent of my mind. 

Oh, sir, you know my business could not afford a heart, 

I kept mine only for my home, a luxury apart. 

At all times from my work here shared with my wife and boy, \ 

I never meant that anything should mar their joy. 

But that day my Phil reasoned, as only children will. 
Until I found safe answers, and true, beyond my skill : — 
I put the blame, I told him, just where it ought to be — 
Upon the foolish drinkers — -ah, how he looked at me ! 

I tried to make excuse to him ; I said I had to sell : — 
And then he pitied me — wished he were grown — ah, well I 
I did not ** have to " long, for ere an hour I knew 
That retribution follows reasoning untrue. 



The Saloon- Keeper's Story. 105 

My boy's young friend spoke not, but watched the door in dread : — 
And, looking into his wan face, Phil turned and plead 
With me : ** See, father, he's half starved, because of drink ! " 
I threw out cakes and said, " Well, we'll stop that, I think." 

" But, father, listen ! — see ! his father's at the door ! 

He beats them all at home ! " I'd heard that plea before, 

And I had wished that he would stay away, but gold 

Had long since silenced thought, and my weak hand controlled. 

I wavered now — drev7 back, and held the well-filled glass : — 
It wasn't much, you see, sir, to let one five cents pass v — 
And my boy's glorious eyes lit up with hope ; but wild 
For drink, the man — poor man — dashed quickly past the child, 

And seized the glass and drank ere I could speak or think ! 
— Excuse me, sir ; tears choke my talk : — that fatal drink 
Was scarcely down before he turned and raged until 
Those two poor little lads, whose pleading crossed his will, 

Laid senseless at his feet b^ieath a madman's blows, 
And I, who sprang across the counter to oppose. 
Had been thrust backward and half murdered by his chair ; 
And glasses and decanters crashing everywhere ! 

Oh, sir, it was Drink's devil I'd let loose at last ! — 
The neighbors came to help, — but strong men stood aghast ! 
His child lay dying, there ! My noble boy was dead ! 
Would God his worthless father had only died instead ! 

My sign down — broken ! Why, think you I could sell 
To any other father, again, that fire of hell ? 
My wife and I would beg, first, for rags and crusts of bread ; 
I tell you we would rather, a thousand times, be dead. 

The murderer ? 'Twas I ! my work killed those boys, there, 
And, oh, those other murders ! Why, sir, God asks me where 
My neighbors are, good neighbors as e'er the world has known, 
If but my wine and whiskey they could have left alone. 

And worse than all, to me, sir, I cannot stop my work ! 
My wrecks still live in all these streets ; why, I can't shirk 
My share in dreadful deeds they even yet may do : — 
Rum-started fiends won't stop because I tell them to ! 



io6 The Power of Right against Wrong. 

Oh, sir — here, where my poor boy died, I plead with you : 
Don't ever touch the wine ! be to your best self true ; 
Don't risk the harm of any human soul ; — don't wait 
To do the thing you know is right until too late. 



THE POWER OF RIGHT AGAINST WRONG. 

BY M. H. POGSON, D.D. 

I COME to counsel you to exercise courage and a lofty trust 
in God ; and there is need for both in the warfare in which we 
are engaged. There is need for courage when any body of men 
array themselves against a system and a traffic that has billions 
of dollars of money invested in it. In the United States as 
elsewhere, we know that the money power is a great power, but 
thank God there is a greater, and that is the power of right as 
against wrong. And we hold it to be a foul wrong that in this 
land of Bibles and of Sabbath-schools, in this land where the 
full blaze of Gospel light is shining in almost meridian lustre, in 
this land with its churches and ministers and people, that such 
a wrong as the liquor traffic should exist for one single solitary 
day. It matters not to me that men engaged in this traffic 
shake their ill-earned gains in the face of the public and say, 
"Aye, but the money power is on our side." That is not the 
question. This is the question : Is God upon your side, is right 
upon your side ? Does the cry of ruined homes and broken 
hearts speak for you or against you ? Answer yea or nay. Oh, 
if every home that has been ruined by strong drink, if every 
woman made a widow through strong drink, if every child 
robbed of a parent's care and protection by strong drink, be a 
mute appeal to the God of armies to arise, it needs not a 
prophet's inspiration to tell what the result will be. Friends, 
the victory is sure to come. Already there are tokens of ad- 
vancing light. We are told that on the plains of the Orient 
the fire-worshippers watch in the darkness for the coming of 
the object of their worship, and as the first fringe of the streaks 
of light begin to gild and touch the summits of the mountains, 
they prostrate themselves and cry, " He is coming, he is com- 
ing " ; and as the God of Day walks through the open gates of 
the morning their enthusiasm increases and they shout, " He 
has come, he has come ; he for whom we have watched and 



The Power of Right against Wrong. 107 

waited has come," and so in my judgment is it and will it be in 
reference to the final triumph of our cause. We have waited 
long in the darkness of doubt and disaster, and when we sup- 
posed we had reason to look for indications of approaching 
light, mountains of opposition have arisen unlooked for and 
have shut out that light, and when by toil and sacrifice and 
effort the obstacles have been overcome, hills have peeped o'er 
hills and Alps on Alps have risen to hide and keep us back in 
the darkness and from accomplishing our purpose. The first 
footfall of temperance scarcely made an echo, but thank God 
that echo never died. The first voice raised in advocacy of the 
principle of total abstinence was but a whisper, but that whisper 
has deepened into a tornado, and that footfall into a tramp that 
to-day shakes this Republic to its centre. The first hymn of 
temperance is fast becoming the chorus of the nation and soon 
the glad refrain of the song answering to that hymn shall be 
heard beating its rhythmic music upon every hilltop and send- 
ing its glad note through every valley in our land. 

Our watchword must be, onv/ard, and, as the white plume of 
Henry of Navarre was the rallying point for his followers in the 
thickest of the fight, so must our banner, the banner of total 
abstinence for the individual and prohibition for the Republic, 
be held aloft in a hand that knows not what it is to relax its 
hold. We are fast gaining a footing on a higher plane. The 
indications of good are not to be mistaken, and soon all along 
the line we will hear the glad sound of the victors, " It has 
come, it has come ; that for Vv^hich we have watched and vv^aited 
has come." Let me say, my friends, that everywhere the 
battle is going against the drink traffic. Its deeds are being 
brought into the light, and Christians stand appalled at the 
misery and ruin which it has caused and is causing in this 
Christian land. No system or traffic can long survive the dis- 
covery that a hundred thousand of our fellow-citizens are sent 
every year into eternity before their tim-e, crushed, mangled, 
murdered, beneath the wheels of this modern juggernaut. 

We must untiringly agitate, agitate, agitate, until we educate 
the public mind and conscience against a traffic and against a 
system which has done more to ruin men, body, soul, and spirit, 
ten times over than all other vices you could mention. Now to 
accomplish our purpose is not an easy work, but let us remember 
that it is God's battle, and we only come up to His help. 



io8 Down with the Traffic. 

DOWN WITH THE TRAFFIC. 

BY REV. DWIGHT WILLIAMS. 

Down with the traffic ! down, we say ! 

And saying it we mean it ; 
Tear off the flimsy veil of law 

The people use to screen it. 
O for a trumpet voice to wake 

The public indignation, 
As when the fire on Sumter's walls 

Roused us to desperation. 

Hath it not stung us long enough ? 

Break up this nest of adders ; 
Down with this awful powder-house. 

Out, out with ** hooks and ladders.** 
Turn out the dealers, not to die 

Or pine of sheer starvation, 
But earn their bread like honest men— 

The common population. 

Take up the papers, how ye read — 
** Shot ! in a row this morning." 
*' Killed ! on the railroad track ! too drunk 

To heed the whistle's warning." 
** Stabbed ! in a lager-beer saloon." 
** Drowned ! in a western river, 
A man plunged headlong o'er a bridge 
All for a drunken driVer." 

** Died, Mary K , aged twenty-two ; 

Policeman in his duty 
Had brought her to the Tombs, that day, 

A sad and drunken beauty." 
** Riot ! one harmless man shot down, 

The drunken wretches fleeing." 
** Neck broken ! gay young man upset ; 

Rash driving caused by spreeing." 

" Fell from the platform of the cars : 
A drunken man was standing. 
The rapid train approached a curve, 
iVnd that was his last landing." 



The Stumbling-Blocks to be Removed. 109 

** Took opium ! leaves a family, 
Oh, there is silent weeping, 
And only bitter tears fall where 
A drunken father's sleeping." 

** Died in the city prison." Say ! 

Shall I ten the story truly ? 
That brilliant man rose like a star 

To set in gloom unduly ; 
He had a fortune, talents rare. 

And rose in his profession, 
But at the dram-shop's open door 

He turned in sad digression. 

Each morning tells the carnival 

Of night that knows no slumber ; 
Where " Drink," the demon, leads to death 

His victims without number ; 
And thus we read from day to day 

These horrors sad and solemn, 
As graveward moves, in awful march, 

The long and dark death-column. 

Down with the ruflSan traflfic ! down ! 

And break its bonds asunder, 
And let the na-tions say ** Amen ! 

In loud and choral thunder. 
Bring out the people's loyal gun, 

And a million votes to load it, 
Make ready, boys ! take aim ! ! — ^and fire ! 

And in a breath explode it. 



THE STUMBLING-BLOCKS TO BE REMOVED. 

BY BISHOP JOHN IRELAND. 

^ As we survey to-day the world around us, and seek occa- 
sions to do good, where is an occasion greater than to preach 
total abstinence and to practice it ? 

There are rrikny evils abroad. The demon is wily, indeed, 
and I do not say that intemperance sums up all the evil in the 
world. By no means. But, among the evils, intemperance is 



no The Stumbling 'Blocks to be Removed. 

the unapproachable one. Hence, if we are good soldiers, we 
will hit the demon in his citadel, and then it is possible he may 
more easily succumb at other points. 

In whatever point of view we consider the question, intem- 
perance affrights us. It wrecks the body, it ruins the soul, it 
causes giant sins against God's law. It pulls down the very 
pillars of society. 

We advocate patriotism, and we know that the country can- 
not endure unless laws are respected and law-makers, the voters 
of the land, act from principle and conscience. 

What does intemperance do ? It makes sots of those that 
declare who shall be our rulers and what shall be our laws. In- 
temperance, more than any other evil perhaps, to-day causes 
wide disrespect for law. And right here comes my astonish- 
ment that Americans, who might forget other sacred considera- 
tions, but who know that all their temporal trusts are bound up 
in the safety of the Republic, stand by quietly while Alcohol by 
example and by teaching leads the citizens of the country to 
despise law. The saloon to-day is the great source of rebellion 
against the law of the land. Make laws whatever you will, and 
the saloon-keeper boldly defies them. Make laws for the ob- 
servance of Sunday — the one day of the week which we have 
striven to hold sacred for God, one of the last vestiges of re- 
ligion in the land — and the saloon-keeper opens wide his doors 
and defies you. 

He cares not for law ; he cares for nothing but for the vile 
profit which he receives in exchange for the souls which he 
damns in time and in eternity. 

The evil is frightful, and it has always been somewhat of a 
mystery to me why it is that men who are known to have many 
friends, and who are devoted to country, to neighbor, and to 
religion, did not join with us in this war against intemperance. 
I tried often to think what is the cause why so many keep away 
from our battle-field, and I feel that this at last is the cause — 
it takes to be a total abstainer and an advocate of total absti- 
nence a great deal of self-denial. Elsewhere men can expect to 
reap the benefits of position without putting themselves to very 
much effort, but here to be loyal to the cause in which you wish 
to enlist them, a man must say to himself, " I will abstain my- 
self." He must say " no *' to the glass of liquor, otherwise his 
advocacy of the cause would be hypocrisy \ and alas, so weak is 



The Stumbling- Blocks to he Removed, in 

human nature, that there are few who have courage to sacrifice 
themselves — to use a Scripture word — to crucify themselves, as 
the Saviour did, for the salvation of others. And hence my 
delight to meet earnest temperance people. I see in them not 
merely soldiers of the cause that I love, but I see in them true 
men and true women ; I see in them persons who have courage. 
They are the stuff out of Vv^hich heroes are made, and they are 
the stuff from which victory finall}'' comes. There will be de- 
lays, there will be difficulties, but we are not afraid. We are 
right. Heaven is with us, and that is quite sufficient for us. 

When we look around us we see that the progress of our 
movement is marked ; and, in one feature particularly, I take 
it that we have largely succeeded, in forming public opinion in 
favor of total abstinence. Public opinion rules the country and 
rules mankind. Whenever you want a great cause to succeed, 
you must form public opinion. We all know that in this matter 
the country has advanced beyond anything that we could well 
expect. To-day total abstinence is honored. Those who have 
not the courage to practice it themselves respect those who do 
practice it. To-day the traffic in alcohol is a disreputable busi- 
ness ; society frowns upon it ; the saloon-keeper keeps away in 
the dark,— he knows he has no place in honored and honor- 
able society. 

The great difficulty with goodness throughout the world is 
that it is a little timid and vice is very bold. Good people, 
following out their instincts, imagine that all that is necessary 
to convert the world is to show the right path. That will do 
for those who are well disposed, but before you can get men to 
follow the right path you must pull off from that path the 
stumbling-blocks. And in this matter of temperance, the 
saloon-keepers, the liquor men, the brewers and distillers, and 
their proteges in Legislatures, are the stumbling-blocks. 

We are in earnest, and v/ith God's blessing the day will soon 
com.e when in our Legislatures and our halls of Congress the 
friends of the saloon will be ashamed to rise from their seats. 
Why, they are an insult to the manhood of America those laws 
that are passed protecting the liquor traffic, that traffic in souls. 
They are an insult to the manhood of the nation those protests 
in our national Legislature against petitions on the part of good 
citizens for laws that will strive in some way to put chains on 
the demon of alcohol. Americans are a very patient people, 



112 The Gin- Fiend. 

but the time always comes when they rise up in their might and 
decide for the welfare of the nation. We are of course a loyal 
people, conservative servants of the law, and oar battle shall 
be through the law. We shall make the laws, and having made 
them we shall enforce them. This done, our holy cause shall 
triumph. 



THE GIN-FIEND. 

BY CHARLES MACKAY. 

The Gin-Fiend cast his eyes abroad, 

And looked o'er all the land, 
And numbered his myriad worshippers 

With his bird-like, long right hand. 
He took his place in the teeming streets, 

And watched the people go 
Around and about, with a buzz and a shout, 

Forever to and fro. 
And it's *' Hip ! " he said, ** hip ! hip ! hurrah ! 

For the multitudes I see. 
Who offer themselves in sacrifice, 

And die for the love of me ! " 

There passed a man in the crowded way, 

With eyes bloodshot and dim ; 
He wore a coat without a sleeve. 

And a hat without a brim. 
His grimy hands with palsy shook, 

And fearfully he laughed, 
Or drivelled and swore, as he clamored for more 

Of the burning poison draught. 
And it's *' Hip ! " said the Gin-Fiend, **hip ! hurrah ! 

Success to him over his bowl ; 
A few short months have made him mine, — 

Brain, and body, and soul ! '* 

There sat a madman in his cell, 

Palm-clenched, with lips compressed, — 

God's likeness blotted from his face, 
And fury in his breast. 

There sat an idiot close beside 
With a dull and stolid leer ; 



The Gin- Fiend. 113 

The apathy of his heavy eye 

Warming at times to fear. 
And it's " Hip ! " said the Gin-Fiend, ** hip ! hurrah ! 

These twain are wholly mine ; 
The one a demon, the other a beast, — 

And both for burning wine ! " 

There stood a woman on a bridge ; 

She was old, but not with years, — 
Old with excess, and passion, and pain ; 

And she wept remorseful tears. 
And she gave to her baby her milkless breast. 

Then, goaded by its cry, 
Made a desperate leap in the river deep, 

In the sight of the passers-by. 
And it's '' Hip ! " said the Gin-Fiend, ** hip ! hurrah ! 

Let them sink in the friendly tide ; 
For the sake of me the creature lived, — 

To satisfy me she died." 

There watched a mother by her hearth. 

Comely, but sad and pale ; 
Her infant slept, her lord was out, 

A-quaffing of his ale. 
She stayed his coming ; and when he came, 

His thoughts were bent on blood ; 
He could not brook her taunting look, 

And he slew her where she stood. 
And it's '' Hip !'* said the Gin-Fiend, **hip ! hurrah ! 

He does his duty well ; 
And he pays the tax he owes to me, 

And the monarchy of hell." 

And every day, in the crowded way. 

He takes his fearful stand. 
And numbers his myriad worshippers 

With his bird-like, long right hand. 
And every day his victims feast 

Before his flashing eyes ; 
And every night, before his sight, 

Are offered in sacrifice. 
And it's '' Hip ! " he says, "hip ! hip ! hurrah ! 

For the deep, up-frothing bowl, 
Which gives me the victims that I crave, — 

Brain, and body, and soul." 



114 The Indictment of Alcohol, 

THE INDICTMENT OF ALCOHOL. 

FROM PETITION TO THE OHIO LEGISLATURE, 1 838. 

The use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage is intemperance, 
—and he who speaks of their " moderate " or " temperate " use, 
abuses reason, despises truth, and perverts language. Without 
a single redeeming trait, their sole and entire aim is to ruin and 
destroy the human species. They begin their work by chang- 
ing man into a brute, continue it by transforming him into a 
monster, and abandon him only when he has ceased to breathe. 
Alcohol, both in name and in truth, is the poison of our species. 
Received into the stomach it remains unchanged, unassimi- 
lated, and as such travels with the blood through the various 
arteries, veins, and organs of the system, not as blood, nor as its 
fit companion, but as a murderous associate — a treacherous 
highwayman, charged with poison and commissioned to de- 
stroy. 

In its journey round, it feeds upon the liver, corrodes the 
lungs, burns the stomach, ruins the appetite, impairs diges- 
tion, discolors and vitiates the blood, defiles the breath, crim- 
sons the nose, parches the lips, blisters the tongue, scalds the 
throat, husks the voice, bloats the face, dims the eye, wastes 
the muscles, palsies the limbs, deranges the nerves, and con- 
sumes the heart ; and as though its warrant was not yet fully 
executed, a detached portion of it aims at the head, breaks 
through its delicate vessels, crowds out reason, and takes up its 
poisonous, sacrilegious residence on the brain, and fears not to 
profane Divinity's earthly temple. What wonder, then, that 
the spirit-drinker is a maniac. 

But even now its baneful work is hardly begun. Having 
thus undermined the health, aud prepared the system for the 
ravages of disease, it strikes at the moral and intellectual powers 
of man. It enfeebles the understanding, impairs the judgment, 
effaces the memory, extinguishes sensibility, pollutes the im- 
agination, depraves the taste, stupefies conscience, annihilates 
honor, prostrates self-respect, debases the social affections, 
sours the disposition, inflames the wicked passions, dethrones 
the reason, and contaminates the heart, and thus quenches 
rational life, and blots out the moral image of Deity's handi- 



The Indictment of Alcohol, 115 

work. Why, therefore, must not the intemperate man become 
a human fiend ? Who is safe where he is ? 

And yet its march of ruin is onward still. It reaches abroad 
to others, invades the family and social circle, and spreads woe 
and sorrow all around. It cuts down youth in its vigor, man- 
hood in its strength, and age in its weakness. It breaks the „ 
father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes natural 
affection, erases conjugal love, blots out filial attachment, blights 
parental hope, and brings down mourning age in sorrow to the 
grave. It produces weakness, not strength ; sickness, not 
health ; death, not life. It makes wives, widows ; children, 
orphans ; fathers, fiends ; and all of them, paupers and beggars. 
It hails fevers, feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epi- 
demics, invites the cholera, imports pestilence, and embraces 
consumptions. It covers the land with idleness, poverty, dis- 
ease, and crime. It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses, 
and demands your asylums. It engenders controversies, fosters 
quarrels, and cherishes riots. It contemns law, spurns order, 
and loves mobs. It crowds your penitentiaries, and furnishes 
the victims for your scaffolds. It is the life-blood of the gam- 
bler, the aliment of the counterfeiter, the prop of the highway- 
man, and the support of the midnight incendiary. 

It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury-box, and 
stains the judicial ermine. It bribes votes, disqualifies voters, 
corrupts elections, pollutes our institutions, and endangers our 
government. It degrades the citizen, debases the legislator, 
dishonors the statesman, and disarms the patriot. It brings 
shame, not honor ; terror, not safety ; despair, not hope ; misery, 
not happiness. And now, as with the malevolence of a fiend, it 
calmly surveys its frightful desolations ; still insatiate with 
havoc ; it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights con- 
fidence, slays reputation, and wipes out national honor ; — then 
curses the world, and laughs at its ruins. 

Humanity now asks, and patriotism and philanthropy earn- 
estly inquire : Shall it, must it continue longer in our free, but 
abused country } and if so, why ? what good has it done 1 what 
good can it effect } whom can it benefit, and how } 

Against this hydra, intemperance, the best efforts of the 
virtuous, the benevolent, and the patriotic have for years been 
arrayed, and we solicit your assistance. We implore your aid 
against this destroyer, the common enemy of the human race. 



ii6 What shall be done with the American Saloon? 

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THE AMER- 
ICAN SALOON? 

BY A. B. LEONARD, D.D. 

' Years ago William H. Burleigh wrote : 

'* My native land, amid thy cabin homes, 
Amid thy palaces a demon roams — 
Frienzied with rage, and subtle in his wrath^ 
He crushes thousands in his fiery path, 
Drags the proud spirit from his envied height. 
And breathes on brightest hopes a withering blight; 
Heralds the shroud, the coffin, and the pall. 
And the graves thicken where his footsteps fall." 

That demon is the legalized liquor traffic in the United States 
of America. It is a remarkable fact that the traffic in intoxi- 
cating drinks is singled out in this land to-day as the one busi- 
ness that has to be banished from our fair land. You hear no one 
tell of any effort to destroy the manufacture and sale of dry- 
goods, to destroy the manufacture and sale of flour, to destroy 
the manufacture of any useful commodity. But there is a cry 
coming up from all the length and breadth of this land for the 
utter, absolute, and eternal destruction of the manufacture and 
sale of intoxicating beverages. The wisest men in this world 
have declared that this traffic is the greatest curse of our age. 
More than a century ago John Wesley said in England : " Liquor- 
dealers are poisoners-general. They drive the people to hell 
like sheep." At about the same period an English nobleman 
said in the House of Lords : " Liquor-sellers are artists in hu- 
man slaughter." More recently still a United States Senator — 
the Hon. Mr. Morrill, of Maine — has said from his place in the 
United States Senate that the traffic in intoxicating drinks is 
** the gigantic crime of crimes of the age in which we live." 
The Right Hon. William E. Gladstone, repeating and endors- 
ing the language of another, has said in the British Parliament 
that the traffic in intoxicating drinks is " a greater scourge upon 
the nation than war, pestilence, and famine combined.'' Our 
own Bishop Foster has said that *' The liquor-dealer is a crim- 
inal of the deepest dye," and that " he deserves a place only in 
the felon's dock, the felon's cell, and if need be on the felon's 



What shall be done with the American Saloon 2 117 

gibbet." These are the words of great and good men — states- 
men and ministers of the Gospel of Christ — who unite in de- 
claring that this traffic in intoxicating drinks is an unmitigated 
curse ; and to-day the man that engages in this traffic is looked 
upon by the better class of people as being outside the pale of 
good society, to say nothing about Christianity. 

Why is it that this traffic in strong drinks is thus arraigned 
before the civilized world ? You call upon those that are en- 
gaged in the traffic to defend themselves, and they are dumb 
with silence. They don't dare come before the public for the 
purpose of defending the business in which they are engaged. 
You test this business in which they are engaged in any way 
you will, and you will find that it is always an unmitigated curse. 
Does the traffic in strong drink prolong life or destroy life ? 
It is to-day declared upon good authority that perhaps not less 
than 75,000 people in this land die annually as the direct result 
of the drink traffic. Three hundred and four thousand Union 
soldiers gave up their lives for the preservation of our country; 
and yet in each four years as they go by more than that num- 
ber of our people go down to dishonored graves. So that we 
arraign the liquor traffic to-day as a cold-blooded murderer. Do 
you ask, does ths traffic in strong drink promote brilliancy of 
intellect, or does it destroy intellect } We consult our statis- 
tics, and find that more than fifty-five per cent, of all that are 
confined in the madhouses of the land have gone there through 
strong drink. Do you ask, does this traffic promote, or does it 
destroy good morals } The answer is, that the traffic in intoxi- 
cating drinks inflames every evil passion, and destroys and up- 
roots everything that is good in human nature. Do you ask, 
does the drink traffic promote, or does it destroy the temporal 
welfare of the people } The answer is, that it is destructive to 
every temporal interest. It is the drink traffic that sends to the 
poorhouses of our country seventy-five per cent, of all their 
inmates. Do you ask, does the drink traffic promote good order 
in society ? The answer is, that the traffic in strong drink 
promotes disorder, and imperils every great city, and almost 
every community in the length and breadth of the land. It is 
the drink traffic that breeds the danger element that we have 
to-day in this country. Take away the saloon and you have 
put away the cause of anarchism. The drink traffic is con- 
stantly a disturber of the peace of the land. There is not a 



ii8 What have you Done To-Day? 

single interest that is near and dear to the homes of the 
American people that the drink traffic does not threaten with 
destruction. 

Here, then, we have in the destructiveness of this traffic a 
demand for reform, and the beginning of all reform is agita- 
tion. And this work of agitation is going forward in all the 
length and breadth of the land. You hear it talked about in 
the street-cars. You hear it talked about in the hotel lobby. 
You hear it talked about on railway trains. You hear it 
talked about in undertones by politicians, and they are wonder- 
ing what is to come of this movement for the overthrow of the 
rum traffic. There is a general state of agitation to-day all 
over this country on the great question, What shall be done 
with the American saloon } 

We come forward, and we say, " We demand the immediate 
and unconditional destruction of the liquor traffic.'' We will 
repeat that demand over and over and over. We will ring the 
changes on it through all the ages and through all the years 
until there is not a legalized rum-shop on American soil. 



WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO-DAY? 

BY ELLA WHEELER-WILCOX. 

I SAW a farmer when the day was done ; 
The setting sun had sought its crimson bed, 
And the mild stars came forward one by one ; 
I saw the sturdy farmer, and I said : 
*' What have you done to-day ? 
O, farmer, say?" 
** O, I've sown the wheat in yonder field. 
And pruned my orchard to increase the yield. 
And turned the furrow for a patch of corn — 
This have I done since early morn." 

I saw a blacksmith in his smithy-door, 
When the day had vanished and the west grew red, 
And all the weary noise and strife were o'er ; 
I saw the kindly blacksmith, and I said : 
** What have you done to-day? 
O, blacksmith, say?" 
** O, I have made two plowshares all complete, 
And nailed the shoes on many a horse's feet, 



What have you Done To- Day 7 119 

And, O, my friend, I cannot tell you half ! " 
The man of muscle responded with a laugh. 

I saw a miller, when the day was gone, 
And all the sunlight from the hills had fled, 
And tender shadows crept across the lawn ; 
I saw the dusty miller, and I said : 

** What have you done to-day? 
O, miller gray?" 
-' O, I have watched my mill from morn till night ; 
Did you ever see flour so snowy white ? 
And many are the mouths to-day I've fed." 
The merry miller laughed as this he said, 

I saw another when the night drew nigh. 
And turned each daily toiler from his task ; 
When gold and crimson cloudlets decked the sky ; 
A drink-seller — and of him I asked, 

'* What have you done to-day ? 
Drink-seller, say?" 
But the drink-seller turned with drooping head, 
And not a single word in answer said. 
What had he done ? His work, he knew full well, 
Was plunging souls in deepest hell ! 

Alas, drink-seller, on that awful day 
When death shall call your race is run, 
How can you answer ? What can you say ? 
When God shall question you, " What have you done ?" 
How can you meet the eye 
Of the Most High ? 
When night approaches and the day grows late, 
Think you to find your way to Heaven's gate ? 
Think you to dwell with souls of honest men ? 
Think you to enter in ? If not, what then ? 



** The good time coming " soon will come 
When honest men with honest laws 
Shall strike the bold rumseller dumb, 

And right, not might, shall win the cause. 
Oh ! then our land indeed shall be 

Foremost among the nations brave ; 
The asylum of the strong and free. 

Where stripes and stars in glory wave ! 



I20 A Relentless Destroyer, 

A RELENTLESS DESTROYER. 

BY HENRY W. GRADY. 

My friends, hesitate before you vote for liquor in your com- 
munity. Do not trust it. It is powerful, aggressive, and uni- 
versal in its attacks. To-night it enters an humble home to 
strike the roses from a woman's cheek, and to-morrow it chal- 
lenges this republic in the halls of Congress. To-day it strikes 
a crust from the lips of a starving child, and to-morrow it levies 
tribute from the Government itself. There is no cottage in this 
city humble enough to escape it — no palace strong enough to 
shut it out. It defies the law when it cannot coerce suffrage. 
It is flexible to cajole, but merciless in victory. It is the mortal 
enemy of peace and order. The despoiler of men, the terror of 
women, the cloud that shadows the face of children, the demon 
that has dug more graves and sent more souls unshrined to 
judgment than all the pestilences that have wasted life since 
God sent the plagues of Egypt, and all the wars that have oc- 
curred since Joshua stood before Jericho. Oh, my countrymen, 
loving God and humanity, do not bring your homes under the 
dominion of that power. It can profit no man, it can uplift no 
industry, revive no interest, remedy no wrong. You know that 
it cannot. It comes to destroy, and it shall profit mainly by 
the ruin of your sons or mine. It comes to mislead humao 
souls and to crush human hearts under its rumbling wheels. It 
comes to bring gray-haired mothers down in shame and sorrow 
totheir graves. It comes to change the wife's love into despair 
and her pride into shame. It comes to still the laughter on 
the lips of little children. It comes to stifle all the music of 
home, and fill it with silence and desolation. It comes to ruin 
your home, and it knows it must measure its prosperity by the 
swiftness and certainty with which it wreaks this work. 



Never shall the promise fail, 
God is with us for the right ; 
Truth is mighty to prevail. 
Faith shall end in joyous sight ; 
We shall see the hosts of rum 
Palsied with affright and dumb ; 

Vote it out ! 
That will put the trade to rout. 



ConcBit TemperancB Exbigisbs; 

OR, 

HELPS FOR ENTERTAINMENTS. 

12mo, 160 pages. Price in Cloth, 50 cts.; Paper covers, 25 cts. 
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY MISS L. PENNEY. 



The National Temperance Society and Publication 
House has just issued a new Collection of Exercises, suitable 
for use in Sunday-schools, Day-schools, Bands of Hope, Loyal 
Temperance Legions, Juvenile Temples, and all Children's 
Organizations, which are easily learned, and will be found 
helpful for entertainments. It has a great variety of exercises, 
suitable for boys and girls — large and small, adapted to every 
occasion. Fan exercises, motion exercises, exercises for the 
days of the week, months of the year, and also special exercises 
for Christmas, Thanksgiving, New-Years, Independence Day, 
and other holidays. All workers among the young will find 
this a welcome aid. 

THE FOLLOWING /5. THE CONTENTS: 



Amendment Alphabet, The. 

Apple Party, An. 

Best Class, The. 

Beii^are of the Saloons. 

Conflict, The. 

Children's Watch-Meeting, The. 

Christmas Entertainment, A. 

Bays of the AVeek, The. 

I>are to do Ri^ht. 

Don't Licave Out the Girls. 

Bibble's Dilemma ; or. How King 

Dabble got over the Trouble. 
For Ood and Home and Native 

Land. 
Go Forward, 
liittle Things. 
Murmurs of Complaint. 
Months, The. 
Our Motto. 



Our Year. 

Patriotic Exercise, A. 

Questions Answered from God'9 

Word. 
Starting a Newr Colony. 
Sign the Pledge. 
Suasion and Persuasion. 
Seasons, The. 
Story of the Nativity, The. 
Ten liittle Temperance Boys. 
Temperance Cloch, A. 
Tr«es and Choppers. 
Temperance or Intemperance. 
Twiddle, Twraddle. 
Welcome Exercise, A. 
What We Mean to Do. 
l¥hile the Sun Shines. 
When I am T^i^enty-on<». 
W^ater-Drops and W^ine-Drops. 



Address J. N. STEARICS, Publisliing Agent, 

58 Reade Street, 3iew York. 



READINGS AND RECITATIONS, 

12mO; 120 pages. Cloth, 60 cents. Paper Cover, 25 centa 
COMPILED BY MISS L. PENNEY, 

EDITOR OF 
The National Temperance Orator ; Readings and Recitations, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, 

The National Temperance Society and Publication House has just 
added a new volume to the Series of Readings and Recitations — No. 8 — com, 
piled by Miss L. Penney. It contains an admirable collection of articles selected 
with great care, some being written especially for this number. No pains or ex- 
pense have been spared in its preparation, the aim being to make it the best of the 
Series. It cannot fail to help on the cause it is intended to promote, and will add 
to the interest of public and private meetings. Lodges, Divisions, Woman's 
Christian Temperance Unions, and all temperance organizations will find it to be 
just what is needed, and its stirring appeals for prohibition make it valuable for all 
prohibition gatherings. 

Among its list of authors are the following well-known speakers and writers: 
T. Da Witt Talmage, D.D., Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, P. S. Henson, D.D., A. A. 
Hopkins, Millie Andrews Bell, Arthur W. Hawks, Mrs. J, McNair Wright, Frances 
E. Willard, Edward Carswell, Bessie Starr Keefer, J. G. Whittier, Thos. R. 
Thompson, Rev. Jos. Cook, F. M. Bradley, H. W. Grady, Geo. W. Bain, Albert 
G. Lawson, D.D. * 

THC: FOIiliOiriNG IS THE TABIifl OF CONTENTS: 



Against License, High or Low. 
Auction or" the Boys (The). 
Aunt Dinah's 'Spsrience. 
Bell of Zanora (The). 
Better Way (The). 
Captain's Well (The). 
Cobbler's Story (The). 
Daughter's Sacrifice (The). 
Devil and the Bottle (The). 
Don't Stand in the Way. 
Drunkard's Solilo- "ly (The). 
Dou't send my B'' > where your 

Girl can't Go, 
Emigrant's First ^^etter Home 

(The). 



Brother Gardne' on Temper. 

ance. 
Contented Philr^ pher (The). 
Eccentricities o^' Rood Templar 

ism. 
Good Time Coining (The). 
Good TemplarCJ and the Grra^ 

War. 



Eternal Justice. 

Heart of a Templar (The). 

Hymn that Bore Him Home 

(The). 
In the Shadow of the Wing. 
It is Time. 
Jack. 

Let Us Alone. 
Life for a Life (A). 
Mother's Story (A). 
Music-stool (The). 
My Boys. 

Path of Desolation (The). 
Plain Cold W^ater. 
Pocket Mystery (A). 

Government of the American 

Sgloon. 
Homes of the People (The). 
Let us go Forward. 
Lion (The). 
Moderation. 
New Emancipation (A). 
Our Resiments of Reform- 
Rescue (The). 



Raw Recruits. 

Right is Might. 

Ride in the Vallej of Con« 

maugh (The). 
Roger Harlakendcn'B Christmai 

Eve. 
Show Him Your Hands. 
Something Great. 
Song of the Decanter (The). 
True Victory. 
Wanted: Men and Deeds I 
Webs and Flies. 
What Does it Cost ? 
Which Shall it Be ? 
Women of Ulster (The). 



Rum and Patriotism. 

Saloon Must Go (The). 

Stump Speech on ProhibitloB 

(A). 
This W ar m\ist go Oh. 
Tim's First Speech. 
Word for the Protection of the 

Home (A). 



The fol' wing are sJfo first-class works for Declamations, Readings, Recita- 
tions, etc.; 

Tlie Nati >!nal Tem^^^^rance Orator. 12mo, 288 pp. By Miss L. Penney $1.00 

Reading »»*! Re^riiations, Ncs. 1, 2, 3j 4, 5, 6, and 7. Each, 12mo. 

By Mis? L. Penney. Cloth, 60 cen's each; paper, each ^a 

Concert 'tempera /iLC Exercises; or, Helps for Entertainments. Py 

MissL. ^enney. ]P. J pages. Cloth, 50 cents; paper c ^d 

The Ten:. perance Speaker. By J. N. Stearns. 288 pages. Cloth, 5 cents; paper. ^ .S^J 

Either of the above books will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
Addrrss J. N. SXEART^S, Publisliitigf Agfent, 

58 Meade Street, New YoiJi\ 



MfiHMf 



'm 



LIBRARY OF 



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